Wearing out

The new school year continues to bring more disappointments than successes. But I can't deny the good moments.

The bike has been giving a little troubel of late. For the last week the chain has been creaking and slipping and finally Friday it broke in the middle of College and St George. Fortunately there was no car hurtling towards me and I was a minute away from BikeChain where I was headed to find out what was wrong with it. I fitted a new chain for 8 dollars. But Saturday no-one turned out for the bike ride, but it was raining...

In 4 years I have worn out 3 tyres, 3 sets of brake pads, one saddle, two sets of pedal bearings,and I have broken 2 bells, 5 wheel spokes on two separate occasions and now one chain. The bike has been worn out because it was been used and not because it was kept safe inside. My veritgo is back because it never went away fully rather because I'm tired and a little worn out. I'm a little disappointed with things this school year but I wouldn't be disappointed if I hadn't tried and trusted. I also wouldn't be able to savour the small moments of success or hope.

Needed a new life including a trade

Many hand operations followed and Paul and his team were feeling rather flushed with success, until one patient came back and said that they had given him "bad hands". The problem was, beggars with deformed and useless hands got money. The ones with good looking, working hands did not. ... That patient challenged Paul to look at the whole man ... Leprosy patients needed a new life including a trade, not just new hands. Sharon Blyth speaking about the late Paul Brand

It's astounding but I've found a website and service called Tourist Remover! (here) The concept is that you'll take a picture and another picture and another and people keep getting in the way. This service will enable you to remove them from the picture. You create something quite nice or even beautiful but it is no longer really a accurate record of what happened or what it was like when you were there. I suppose that we have to be grateful is wasn't Tourist Eliminator!

If life were that simple. But memories and their history are important to us they often tell us who we are both in positive and negative ways. Even most psychotherapies do not attempt to wipeout memories but to reinterpret them. To wish them away is craziness because we need the experiences of life to give true wisdom. Unfortunately most wisdom comes from "the school of hard knocks" the bruises and woundings of life not from the good stuff. I written about Paul Brand and his writing on the importance of pain. He was a surgeon working with leprosy patients and I was taken by books I read many years ago about and by him. Fixing up patients came to mean more than simply getting the body to work or fixing hands, it was far more intentional, and it was far more than saving souls.

Fixing up a photo simply creates a fake which looks good but deny the people and relationships however irritating as people get in the way. WE are called to care for the whole person. You know what trade Paul Brand taught his patents, carpentry. There is a sort of irony and glory in the same moment.

Convenient food

Being a "locavore" and eating foods grown near where you live may not help the environment as much as you might think, according a new study. Mason Inman National Geographic News April 2008

I was born before supermarkets, before freezers and definitely before convenience and prepackaged foods. I remember when food was local because the economic and food technological machinery did not exist. The last few weeks have exposed a fatal weakness in all human systems, namely selfishness and greed. Human beings have tunnel vision and are essentially reductionist, seeing only what they want to see. Food production is never merely about carbon footprint nor about saving time or about profits.

The last few weeks the media has been filled with listereosis and the sliced meats and cheese contamination. We've known for a long time that ground meats are more prone to bacterial contamination, but assumed that cooked and cured meats would be safe. But of course pre-slicing before sales removes that protection. Prepackaged and pre sliced foods are quick and convenient. It removes food preparation from those eating to others making profits.

Now milk intentionally contaminated with melamine is in the news. 53,000 babies and young children affected in a country with a one child policy! But this is not the action of one person or one company as so far 22 companies have been identified as following this dangerous practice of doctoring the milk. But the effect is not localized to once country but across Asia and even North America because globalization means foods travel the world.

Most food in North America travels at least 1500 kilometres to you in fact In the USA, in one meal ingredients may come from five different nations, and in Australia, that might be 30,000 km from farm to stomach. We want strawberries or raspberries in winter so they travel across continents. We're encouraged to eat more fish except we're a long way from the ocean and of course no more than 2 portions a week because of mercury.

In all of this, whoever we are we assume that our governments and officials will look after us. But it's interesting that the politicians are campaigning like fury and spend more time working on negative talk rather than the role of politicians. I was asking myself what I should have said the other night when the local candidate appeared on my door step. Here's a few questions that came to mind this afternoon "If you're elected who will command your loyalty, 1) your party, 2) those who voted for you, or 3) the people living in this neighbourhood?" or "Would you still stand for election if there were no pension and the salary was half that currently?" or "Why do you exactly want to be a politician?"

No government is ever elected on the platform that "We will spend extra millions on testing and confirming the safety of water and food." No government would voted themselves a pay decrease because they did not fulfill promises. Somehow, at the moment, being a politician seems to be another way to convenient food?

Good government has checks and balances to ensure safety and wise practices. In a democratic system this is normatively found in losing an election. The problem, I see, is that pensions and benefits cut in too early and there are really few penalties for a politician who fails to be re-elected. Furthermore government is no longer agent of the peoples rather politicians are in the same category as a used car salesman, you wouldn't trust anything they had to say. Negative campaigning is always unhelpful and unsavory.

Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, and discerning if he holds his tongue. An unfriendly man pursues selfish ends; he defies all sound judgment. Proverbs 17:28 , 18:1

Christianity is now almost impossible to explain

Christianity is now almost impossible to explain, not because the concepts aren’t intelligible, but because the living, moving, speaking examples of our faith don’t line up with the message. Our poor posture overshadows the most beautiful story and reality the world has ever known. Hugh Halter and Matt Smay The Tangible Kingdom cited by Mark Priddy

Mark Priddy's article about Caring for Strangers is very close to my heart. He tells the story of a group inviting the staff from a local diner to dinner as an act of hospitality to the alien in the land after having read Deuteronomy. Not a Potluck or a stand-up party but a sit down table cloth and best china dinner not just the select few but 35 of them. Read his article and wonder if it's something you could do? (read it here)

We got involved, well others from our church were involved in pedestrian Sunday, a street festival outside the gym doors. But as yet I'm not sure we understand our world and how we relate to it. H Richard Niebuhr wrote Christ and Culture, a book that has become a classic. It it he posited five different stances which the church has to the world. These are Christ against Culture, Christ of Culture, Christ above Culture, Christ and Culture in Paradox, Christ Transforming Culture. How do they operate?

Well Christ against culture is obviously antagonistic and the view encourages the separation or withdrawal from culture. The Christ of culture is the opposite,one of accommodation and political correctness.Christians are likely confuse the prevailing spirit of the age for the Holy Spirit. Christ above culture suggests obviously a superiority or benevolence as culture cannot be all bad because it is founded on the nature created good by God. Christ and culture in paradox see that both Christ and culture claim our loyalty and there is a lasting the tension between them cannot be reconciled. Christ transforming culture is obviously Neibuhr's preference and also my roots. This is optimistic about the ability of Christians to change and influence culture. This is a position that at least sees life missionally.

I don't think we stand still rather oscillate between various positions and we have a tendency to retreat into one of the first 2 either Christ against or Christ of culture. We certainly have a tendency to congregate with people who are similar or the same instead of combing the laneways and alleys to bring guests into the feast.

Then the master told his servant, 'Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full. Luke 14:23

Prove this is no lie

From around the age of six, I had the habit of sketching from life. I became an artist, and from fifty on began producing works that won some reputation, but nothing I did before the age of seventy was worthy of attention. At seventy-three, I began to grasp the structures of birds and beasts, insects and fish, and of the way plants grow. If I go on trying, I will surely understand them still better by the time I am eighty-six, so that by ninety I will have penetrated to their essential nature. At one hundred, I may well have a positively divine understanding of them, while at one hundred and thirty, forty, or more I will have reached the stage where every dot and every stroke I paint will be alive. May Heaven, that grants long life, give me the chance to prove that this is no lie. Katsushika Hokusai, renown Japanese woodcut artist cited by Danny Gregory

I make no wild claims about having it all together or having solutions. We work those out in fear and trembling. it is a matter of to go on trying and never to give up going on trying. If you believe then we have eternity to work it all out. (No, the picture isn't me. It's taken on the New York subway from Bill's Gallery here) At the moment I'm not good enough nor consistent enough to make it a busker. Who know about the future, but I'm still working on it?

The future and optimism

Many people live with the unconscious or conscious expectation that eventually things will get better; wars, hunger, poverty, oppression, and exploitation will vanish; and all people will live in harmony. Their lives and work are motivated by that expectation. When this does not happen in their lifetimes, they are often disillusioned and experience themselves as failures.
But Jesus doesn't support such an optimistic outlook. He foresees not only the destruction of his beloved city Jerusalem but also a world full of cruelty, violence, and conflict. For Jesus there is no happy ending in this world. The challenge of Jesus is not to solve all the world's problems before the end of time but to remain faithful at any cost. Henri Nouwen Bread for the Journey

Remaining faithful in all things, in all trials and tribulations. There is often flawed thinking that when everything is going right you're following God and living the right life and the opposite that when things are going wrong then you're far from God and in the wrong. But one of the alternative translation of the Lord's prayer takes us to "Do not bring us to time of trial" rather than "Lead us not into temptation." Our thinking tends to lead us into causal thinking. What caused this state? This is part of blame culture and thinking. Rather first and foremost we need relational thinking, to cry to God and express our need of him. The need to remain faithful is more important than to portion blame or cause. Life is not black and white as the author of Ecclesiastes asks why good things happen to bad people and bad to good people and everything is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

Foolhardy Optimism

The city is in ruins. Steve McCraw, director of Homeland Security in Texas speaking of Galveston.

Hurricane Ike hit hard and even after the lessons of previous experiences, 10,000 people still stayed in Galveston, Texas. Despite living in a place that remembers a hurricane that killed 8,000 people in 1900, these people ignored the best advice and so far 2,000 have had to be rescued. The city is uninhabitable reminiscent of New Orleans not so long ago with Katrina. Only two weeks ago it was Hurricane Gustav for Eastern Texas. Do people still have an optimism that everything will turn out OK? I still feel a lot of people live with "it will never happen to me" lifestyles. Furthermore I read a report that 300 relief workers in Houston are low on food and water already. The report suggested that they were already hungry and thirsty. Even more issues await the residents of Texas seen in this warning sent out.

Citizens remaining in Southeast Texas should be very cautious of snakes, fireants and other potentially dangerous wildlife in the wake of Hurricane Ike. Cottonmouth water moccasins and copperheads are the two most prevalent poisonous snake species in the region and they along with numerous nonvenomous species are likely to enter homes and other dwellings in flood conditions.

Trying to avoid thoughts of the plagues of Egypt, I see that preparedness is not a foolhardy optimism. It is always a readiness for the inevitability that something might go wrong. Preparedness is not always prepared to stay but also a prepared to go. I often have a bag packed ready to go. It contains my travel clothing rather than my everyday wear. You might wonder what the difference is if you know what I normally wear. Well everything in the bag is fast dry Though they are mainly lightweight as a result, but it does layer for cooler situations. I think we should be always living with "it might happen to me."

With an understanding of the end of time, Christians not only have a strong hope in life in the age to come but also a judgment on behaviour and action. What did we do with our resources? What did we do in response to situations? I'd like to be prepared to that accounting exercise.

After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. Matt 25:19

Communities and unity

Communities are defined by who’s in them and who isn’t, us vs. them. … people are galvanized by being presented with an opponent. (As a sidebar, when Al Gore established his leadership by defining a situation that impacts us all, by asserting that for once there was no Them, just Us, all of Us, and that we could all make a contribution to fix the problem, I was very inspired. I was also flabbergasted by how many people, those in power and those with no apparent axe to grind, were skeptical and even openly hostile against the effort to reduce global warming. I just don’t get it but can only assume that the agendas are hidden but there, and that the power of denial is incredibly strong. ) Danny Gregory My vote

I got into reading Danny Gregory's blog because he draws and writes and teaches it. Gloria introduced me to his blog and his work is fascinating. But I am quite taken by his passionate tirade about the state of his country's politics. Somehow I feel so right for so many countries and in fact many communities. In the last 12 hours (it's Sunday Evening) I've sat and had some pretty significant conversations and given and received encouragement that may the impossible and miraculous can happen in this world.

Danny continues:

It’s sad that in the current political debate so many people seem more interested in diminishing the ideas of others than in providing solutions of their own. The politics of division are an enormous drag on our progress and eat up resources and energy that could be so much better used.

The trouble is community is com plus unity. That is unity together but when we define ourselves something is very wrong. Somehow that will always setup a them vs us thinking. This stuff isn't just about politics. When it comes to things of faith and spirituality it can set up arrogance and pride. I learned a long time ago that frequently what you accuse others of are the things you are already! Something about planks and splinters. When I realized that I shut my mouth and have been careful about when to open it.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." John 8:7

I have never noticed before that Jesus' answer is under pressure, it is almost as if he is forced to make this pronouncement because they keep talking. They keep accusing "In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" In that act they accuse themselves. Remove the us vs. them division for we are all in the same condition really!

Concrete - the Lessons of history

I've been hearing so much about concrete crumbling and that concrete structures have a life of 40 odd years before extensive work is required. Also concrete basements that leak and flood. The first thing that has sprung to mind is that many Roman constructions are also made using concrete. The Pantheon is the oldest domed building in the world. Built in Rome and extensively renovated around 145 AD, the dome is both 43.3 metres (142 ft) high and 43.3 metres across. This building is big and almost 2,000 years old and it's built of concrete! We even know the formula for Roman concrete. It is known their concrete was made from a pasty hydrate of lime, with pozzolanic ash and lightweight pumice from a nearby volcano, and fist-sized pieces of rock. Also the Romans developed waterproof concrete which can be poured under water and will actually set. So what is our problem?

For most of the time I have been able to read I have had an interest in archaeology. I recently came across an interesting theory taken from the observation that at least parts of the Khufu Pyramid (Great Pyramid) were "microstructurally" different from other limestone blocks. This is suggested that some of the immense blocks of the Great Pyramids of Egypt might have been cast from synthetic material - the world's first concrete - made 2,000 years before the Romans invented concrete! (see the article here) Linn Hobbs, professor of materials science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology asked: -

Maybe the ancient Egyptians didn't just leave us mysterious monuments and mummies. Maybe they invented concrete 2,000 years before the Romans started using it in their structures.

OK so why are 2,000 year old and even 4,000 year old huge concrete structures still standing requiring limited maintenance and here in my city all sorts of concrete structures (including my church and city bridges etc) need major reconstruction and repair work?

Learning lessons from the past is the historian's self justification for their discipline. We sometimes read the history of Israel with interest but don't realize that we are to learn the lessons of the past and that it has personal implications. We can be just as self-focused, rebellious and stiff-necked as the Israelites. We can be just as forgetful and ungrateful. If we are to build solid great structures then perhaps we need to learn from the past both the good and bad points.

Preparedness

As Hurricane Ike reeks havoc down south, the last few weeks I've been thinking about preparedness and emergency kits etc. When Y2K was looming I did a lot of thinking and substantial preparation and I was ready for 2 weeks without power and perhaps gas and water. I learned about water purification and had a survival plan in place. When Blackout struck the North Eastern North America I was ready. I cooked my meal that night did some reading by candle light and sat out and watched the stars. A month or so ago I sorted out my first aid box and realized I had probably too many things so I resolved them down into a pack I could throw into luggage in a emergency. Also I was at the MEC recently and saw that emergency preparedness kits were on sale. How prepared am I for disaster or emergencies?

So I'm thinking about sorting things because I already have the basics. Hand-cracked flashlight, candles, matches. Emergency blanket and tarps together with sleeping bags, butane stove and gas cylinders, First Aid kit supplies. Basic to human survival are water, shelter/warmth and food. Then information as orientation and source of hope and a sense of security become important. I think therefore I am missing a few things such as water purification supplies, dehydrated food/high energy food source, hand-cranked radio. Strangely this is linked to my cleaning up as well because it is a way of sorting all the different bits I have lying around and centralizing them.

I think this should also apply to the spiritual life and preparedness to meet adversity and disappointment. This last week I was really disappointed by a few things but also because I already had a number of other things in place the impact was substantially reduced. My English conversation class has been cancelled because only two people enrolled, however I still have another elsewhere due to happen and there are students expressing interested in having tutoring. No target students turned up last Saturday but because I had set up analytics I could identify at least significant first time visits to the website. Dealing with what are called desolations, times when God seems far away, is always part of treasuring consolations, moments when God is close. Thus a preparedness is necessary, the good times can prepare you for the bad times. I am not really a last-minuter probably because of fear of failure but in my own defence I'll say good planning and preparation is as much a spiritual activity as being spontaneous. In fact sometimes adequate planning and preparation allows you to be more spontaneous and open to the leading of the Spirit because you're resourced with your emergency preparedness kit.

Losing our way

The great danger of the turmoil of the end-time in which we live is losing our souls. Losing our souls means losing touch with our center, our true call in life, our mission, our spiritual task. Losing our soul means becoming so distracted by and preoccupied with all that is happening around us that we end up fragmented, confused, and erratic. Jesus is very aware of that danger. He says: "Take care not to be deceived, because many will come using my name and saying, 'I am the one' and 'The time is near at hand' Refuse to join them" (Luke 21:8). In the midst of anxious times there are many false prophets, promising all sorts of "salvations." It is important that we be faithful disciples of Jesus, never losing touch with our true spiritual selves. Henri Nouwen Bread for the Journey

I am constantly amazed how Nouwen puts the deepest things in such a simple way. It is so reasonable and yet so key. Avoiding issues of once saved always saved he takes us back to wondering about lived out lives and loss of direction and purpose. Back to issues whether we are alive or not, whether we are barely alive in Christ or seeking to be fully alive.

when are we dead or barely alive

Trapped inside their bodies, apparently switched off to the world, but still alive: they are the undead. Or so we thought. Forty per cent of patients in a ‘vegetative state’ are misdiagnosed. John Cornwell Timesonline

An article at Timesonline points to misdiagnosis of persistent vegetative state, or PVS. The person appears to be not conscious nor aware nor reacting to stimuli. There is no perceivable brain response. John Cornwell records many amazing stories in his article and probably the most shocking and amusing at the same time is this true story. (Read them all here)

“Young man with motorbike head injury in a coma. His mum, a keen evangelical, comes every day with friends to sing Onward, Christian Soldiers by his bedside. She’s hoping to stimulate his brain into action. It works: he comes round, but he can’t speak. So they fit him up with one of those Stephen Hawking-type laptops, and the first words he speaks are: “For God’s sake, Mum, shut it!” recorded from a psychologist at Putney’s Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability

I notice sadly many Christians who seem barely alive in their spiritual lives. Not only do they seem to be going nowhere but they also seem to be either in denial or blissfully unaware that a spiritual life involved all the aspects of human existence and not merely the outward behaviours and vocabulary of religious practice. If there is truly a divine -human relationship then a continuing stream of insights and epiphanies is to be expected as God breaks into mundane human existence to transform it into life in all its fullness.

Kate Bainbridge... suffered severe brain inflammation after contracting a viral infection. When she came out of the coma, she opened her eyes and could breathe naturally, but she was unresponsive to speech and visual stimuli, and appeared to lack all conscious awareness. ... Adrian Owen’s first experiment on Kate involved presenting her with photographs of her mother and father, followed by fuzzy, meaningless pictures, while her brain was being scanned. “We found,” he says, “that areas of Kate’s brain burst into activity when pics of her family were shown that accorded perfectly with the brain locations of healthy volunteers doing the same task.”

Labour Day weekend as I was speaking about being fully alive ... I had written in my notes struggling proves that you are still alive and kicking. Now after reading this I wonder whether we ought to ensure we have the right stimulation as well. Reading and praying, fellowshiping and serving are in a sense stimulation situations, where we might prove ourselves alive. Are you alive and kicking? Really?