winter finally arrives

another weekend gone. finally got some 'real' winter weather with a strong icy southerly and storm on saturday night. we didn't get any snow at our place but i'm sure they did 5 minutes up the road at Hilltop, though we didn't go up there and have a look ourselves. we heard they had 4 inches at Bowral, which is just 20 minutes away.
 
my personal 'event' of the weekend was putting the corner of a hatchet blade through the heel of my hand. it was late saturday afternoon, trying to get as much wood chopped as i could before cold and dark forced me inside. i was holding a pretty small piece with my left hand, intending to chop the layer of bark off with the hatchet (the bark isn't very friendly with our wood-burning stove), but got momentarily distracted and hit my hand instead. i was remarkably fortunate, really - the blade went in (and out again) the heel of my thumb parallel to my palm, managing to tread the fine line between slicing off a nice chunk of flesh on the 'shallow' side and hitting any tendons on the 'deep' side. the entrance cut was about an inch long and the exit cut about half that, with an inch or so between the two. another remarkable thing is that i didn't suffer any shock, something i've been prone to in the past. so i bound my hand up, had a bit to eat and took myself up to the hospital where i got properly bandaged up (no stitches thankfully), along with a tetanus jab. as i said, i was extremely fortunate.
 
on sunday morning we went to church (no, it didn't have anything to do with the previous evening's incident). it's the second time we've visited this particular group, in a town about 10 minutes drive from home. the main reason we've gone is because a couple who are good friends of ours are considering/applying for the soon-to-be-vacated pastor's job. there's a very good chance they'll get the position, and if they do we'll definitely commit ourselves to the place as well, but that might happen even if they aren't accepted.
 
this is a scary thought. we haven't been regular 'church' attenders for almost five years since moving to the area. frankly, i haven't missed it much, despite occasional guilt and 'encouragement' from others worried about the state of our faith. i have a host of intellectual/theological/doctrinal issues with the 'traditional' church scene (organisation & heirarchy, church building, sunday morning 'services' with the standard structure, etc, etc, etc.), and had pretty much convinced myself that it was no longer for me, that i'd find (or start) an alternative which was closer to what i believe 'church' should be.
 
so why the change of heart? obviously, our friends being there makes a lot of difference, as we'll start with one solid relationship already 'built-in'. the fact that it is one of the closest 'established' churches to our house is also important, as i believe very strongly that 'church' community and 'world' community (for want of a better term) should be as physically coincident as possible. i'm also aware that there are many advantages in tapping into an existing group (the old 'change the system from the inside' strategy) rather than trying to get something going ourselves - and of course the former doesn't necessarily preclude the latter anyway, and can even provide support and resources that wouldn't otherwise be available.
 
the clincher, though, for me at least, is the way we felt with this particular group of people. it's hard to put a finger on what it is - it's not just that they're friendly or welcoming, though they definitely are, without it feeling creepy or forced. in some ways it was quite a bizarre experience because we felt so 'at ease' yesterday, on only our second visit. they had a luncheon thing going after the meeting and we were having soup and talking to people while running around after freya, trying to feed her something and keep her out of trouble. but there was no stress involved, it just felt very relaxed and comfortable, like we'd been part of the group for a while. it was almost surreal, and had both of us doing repeated mental double-takes, thinking "is this for real?" needless to say, we were quite impressed.
 
so, despite misgivings, i'm pretty happy with the prospect, which is saying something in itself. of course, you won't hear me commit to anything, but at this point it looks like we'll be moving in that direction...  ;^)

do unto the children

i'm sickened by this story from sydney of a nine-year-old girl set alight by two teenage girls. i know that far worse things happen to kids every day, but can someone please tell me what the f**k is this world coming to?
 
since becoming a dad, i've been ultra-sensitive to harm done to children. about six months ago my little girl freya spilled a cup of hot tea on herself that we had carelessly left in her reach. the burns didn't end up being very bad and haven't left any scars, thanks mainly to my wife janette's 0.1 sec dash with baby to the bathroom followed by the administration of copious amounts of cold water, but the hardest thing for us was hearing her screams of agony and incomprehension (what's happening to me? why is it happening? what have i done to deserve this?) and knowing that we couldn't do anything to make the pain stop right now.
 
children are helpless and innocent, and they don't understand why anyone would want to harm them. in my opinion, harming a child is the worst crime on the face of the earth, and anyone who deliberately injures a child should be shot on sight, no questions asked. there can never be any excuse or justification for such an act.

this includes smoking. it should be illegal to smoke in the presence of a child or of a pregnant woman, especially in a confined space such as a house, and any pregnant woman who smokes should be locked up. i know it sounds harsh, but we know that cigarette smoke harms children, especially the unborn, so how can we continue to tolerate it and just advise people against it. its obvious that people aren't heeding the advice, so the government needs to step in to protect these helpless victims.
 
another thing i'm thinking about here is war. the unceasing reports of death and injury to children and their parents in iraq make me sick, especially when they're a result of coalition force action. i know its not a simple issue, but these things are the direct and foreseeable consequence of the invasion, and so its our fault as the invaders, not saddam hussein's. of course, there's a time and place for protecting the helpless and innocent from tyrants, but the invasion of iraq was never about that (except in history-rewriting hindsight). may god have mercy on george w bush, tony blair and john howard for the innocent blood on their hands, and the rest of us citizens of the 'coalition of the willing' for not doing more to stop the madness.
 
the world is not black and white, and no child will ever grow up free from harm of some sort, but as their elders and protectors, its our responsibility to do all we can to minimise this harm, to the best of our knowledge and ability.

the big issue

after my post quoting a couple of bruce cockburn songs and briefly mentioning economic justice issues in iraq, this morning i read this excellent post on the organic church blog, which contains a lengthy excerpt from an interview with n.t. wright by the u.s. national catholic reporter.

tom wright is one of the humans i most respect in the world today, and i think what he says in this interview is spot on. so much of what we worry about in the west are first world, top of the mudheap issues, happily ignoring (or willfully ignorant of) the serious economic injustice that underpins our lifestyle, that keeps 'us' on the top and 'them' on the bottom.

i seriously believe that this is a life and death issue for the 'western church', something that must be addressed if it is to survive. its not good enough to lie back and accept the economic status quo as 'just the way things are'. god's concern for economic justice is overwhelmingly obvious throughout the bible, and jesus repeatedly said "go and sell what you own and give to the poor?" if the church, the body incarnate of jesus in this world, fails to live out this concern, it is at best just a jesus fan club, a bunch of people who admire the guy (and sing songs ad nauseum about it) but who aren't too interested in taking what he said seriously.

i often think that its too late, especially for the institutional church in 'the west', but there is always grace. if we don't treat the situation as critical, though, we'll soon choke to death on our affluence. of course, we might go on looking alive for years to come, but only because we humans are so adept at perpetuating our own man-made structures (and all structure is man-made), but no quantity of programs or pretty buildings or exciting meetings will be able to cover the stench of the corpse for long.

a bit of bruce for a friday afternoon

so much of what i hear in the news these days brings to mind the songs of bruce cockburn from his 'angry' period in the 80s. he could be a prophet. that would be the most comforting explanation, in a way, because the other, more disquieting, explanation for the immediacy and applicability of his songs from 20 years ago is that history is repeating, that what he was documenting and describing then is just happening again.

take the song People See Through You. it could easily have been written about the current u.s. administration (but was actually about the government of the recently departed ronnie reagan). we can only hope that its true that 'people see through you', because it looks more and more like people just aren't watching anymore, and that would be the most frightening thing of all...

You've got covert action
Prejudice to extremes
You've got primitive cunning
And high tech means
You've got eyes everywhere
But people see through you

You've got good manipulators
Got your store of dupes
You've got the idiot clamour
Of your lobby groups
You like to play on fears
But people see through you

You've got instant communication
Instant data tabulation
You got the forces of occupation
But you don't get capitulation
Cause people see through you

You've got the sounding brass
You've got the triumph of the will
You do what you want to
And we pay the bills
You hype the need for sacrifice
But people see through you

You've got anti-matter language
Contrived to conceal
You've been lying so long
You don't know what's real
You're a figment of your own imagination
And people see through you

You've got lip service tributaries
You've got death fetish mercenaries
You hold the tickets to the cemetaries
You're big and bad and scary
But people see through you

(Copyright Bruce Cockburn 1985)

something we don't see or hear about often is the money its going to take to get iraq back on its feet. of course there is a fair bit of foreign aid flowing in at the moment, but don't think for a moment that the imf and world bank aren't sinking in their dirty claws as deep as they can go. that massive oil reserve is going to be very good for loan interest payments for years and years to come, thank you very much. but we all knew this is what 'democratising' is all about, didn't we: letting foreign banks and corporations have free rein (or is that reign?), and if they bleed the country dry, well that's just market forces.

did i say "get iraq back on its feet?" more like keep it on its knees...

Call it Democracy

Padded with power here they come
International loan sharks backed by the guns
Of market hungry military profiteers
Whose word is a swamp and whose brow is smeared
With the blood of the poor

Who rob life of its quality
Who render rage a necessity
By turning countries into labour camps
Modern slavers in drag as champions of freedom

Sinister cynical instrument
Who makes the gun into a sacrament --
The only response to the deification
Of tyranny by so-called "developed" nations'
Idolatry of ideology

North South East West
Kill the best and buy the rest
It's just spend a buck to make a buck
You don't really give a flying fuck
About the people in misery

IMF dirty MF
Takes away everything it can get
Always making certain that there's one thing left
Keep them on the hook with insupportable debt

See the paid-off local bottom feeders
Passing themselves off as leaders
Kiss the ladies shake hands with the fellows
Open for business like a cheap bordello

And they call it democracy

See the loaded eyes of the children too
Trying to make the best of it the way kids do
One day you're going to rise from your habitual feast
To find yourself staring down the throat of the beast
They call the revolution

IMF dirty MF
Takes away everything it can get
Always making certain that there's one thing left
Keep them on the hook with insupportable debt

And they call it democracy

(Copyright Bruce Cockburn 1985)

presence

darren rowse has a great post on his blog called Rhythmic Mission.

first a comment on the word 'mission': i don't like it at all, because it implies that for a believer life can be compartmentalised into 'mission' and 'non-mission'. the prevalence of this kind of duality in christian thought today (and historically) just sucks, in my (not so) humble opinion. life is just life. whatever you happen to be doing, its part of life. and for believers, everything we do is part of the witness to those who don't believe, not just the bits we categorise as 'mission'. darren actually seems to be saying this in his post when he talks about connecting the daily rhythms of one's life with the daily rhythms of others, but this point is watered down unhelpfully (i think) by using the 'm' word.

the thing which twigged for me, though, in darren's post is the idea of not just being proximate to the people we meet and interact with, but being present with them.

presence requires much more than mere proximity. it involves giving of ourselves, dropping our defenses and actually meeting the other person, looking them in the eye and acknowledging our shared humanity.

i'm not very good with presence. i'm a whole lot better at absence, staying within my protected shell, keeping myself emotionally removed, observing and analysing from a safe distance. i don't connect too often or too well.

i really want to learn how to be present, if nothing else because my wife and daughter desperately need it...

back from the dead...

...at least that's what it feels like, and i'm still not fully alive...

i've been doing mighty battle with the mother of all colds - ears, nose, throat, sinus, cough, head-in-a-vice agony, the whole lunchbox. even threw up once, just for good measure. its been going on since at least wednesday, with friday the worst.

back at work today, but still feeling well under the weather, nose still leaking, sinuses still congested, head still aching. i want this to be over with now, please!

then when i got in the car (20 y.o. toyota celica) to drive to the train station this morning, the clutch was gone. what a pain, and i was already running late (this already being 6:45am).

it could have been worse. i managed to get the car going in first gear out of the driveway, then going again in second gear on the road (what a car!), limped the 15kms to the nearest mechanic (things are few and far between out our way - think country not suburbia), left the car there for future attention and walked the 3kms to the nearest train station, making it a good 3 minutes before the next train was due (it was 5 minutes late), and in only another 2 1/2 hours i was at work!

here's hoping the trip home this evening is a bit better...