I am amazing/Incredible me/Celebrating the being/I choose to be

Single people can so focus on the absence of one relationship that we overlook the people who are already part of our lives. What's more, we can forget that most of anyone's relationships in life are not romantic; nor do people assess a single person in romantic terms.

For instance, I know an elderly lady who is gracious and wise. She does the Powerpoint for church each week, takes an interest in the people around her and is really involved in her children's lives. I don't think of her in romantic terms, yet she's an attractive person, someone for whom others have great respect. This lady is married, but if she were not, the absence of that one relationship would not make her any less in mine or anyone else's eyes.

Not only is this so, but as Christians, the most meaningful and lasting relationship we enjoy isn't a romantic one. It's being a brother or sister in Christ. This is the relationship that comes before any other and the one that will carry on after death. It's a role that brings great dignity. Though we did not earn it, in it we can be proud.


Title taken from the first stanza of "Hello World" by Dan Coppersmith http://www.spiritwire.com/kidsselfesteemposter.html accessed 30/12/10

The mind of Christ

I get the feeling that people expect missionaries to be on a higher spiritual plane. I never know what to say when I'm asked about my 'call'. I mean I'm certainly open to God speaking in that direct way, but I don't think we're promised that he will. And I don't see other people looking for a call to their secular job or even to other, home-based, ministry. My sense of being 'called' comes more from what has been directly spoken to us all in the Bible and from a sensitivity to God's providential ordering of life's details.

This extra-spiritual expectation also comes out when I'm making decisions about the details of where I'll go and what I'll do. I'm advised to 'pray about it' and I feel like it would be unacceptable to simply say, "Having thought about the position description you forwarded me . . .".

This helps:

. . . And don't just say, "I prayed about it". What's praying got to do with it? That's talking at God. That's just more you talking. Praying's not a form of guidance. Praying's a form of asking. . . . Think about it! You pray about it, ask for wisdom, to then use the wisdom to think!*

Thinking can be spiritual too :).


* Mikey Lynch, 'Sermon 3' from the Ministry Challenge conference Tasmania 2010

Actually helping

Many months ago I went to a SIM conference at which a lady spoke about the difference between 'relief', 'aid' and 'development'. If you do one when you should be doing another, what is meant to help ends up hurting.

Relief (eg the distribution of food and medical supplies after an earthquake) should be immediate, temporary and seldom. Rehabilitation is the middle way. It aims at getting a person or community back to normal (eg helping girls get out of prostitution). Development is intended for a community which is already functioning normally and aims to improve their lot. Because of this it should be participatory, empowering, holistic, and sustainable. Helpful categories I think.


H/T Juanita

Happy dependency

The major thing that stopped me becoming a Christian before I did was dread of giving up control. The thing I feared more than anything was having God decide how I should live my life. I would've hated the thought of this anyway, but it was made worse because my previous Christian experience seemed to be about restrictive, life-denying, socially-humiliating rules. I feared a return to all that.

God forced my hand by breaking my heart. Strange to say, I'm glad he did. I was never happy in my freedom. I gave myself over to him and realised that true Christianity is much more a yes to life; that Jesus' yoke is indeed easy and his burden light. I've found it inestimably better to live as I was made to, than to blindly order my own life.

The sovereignty of God actually

Another thing I realised in inviting my friends to the Cross of Christ was that my role was pretty limited. Aside from not actively putting them off, I had very little control over their response. I just had to give them the invitation and leave the rest up to God. It was pretty unsettling. I felt like there must be something that I could do to make them come. I felt like I wasn't being totally faithful unless I did something. So I had to remind myself that my friends' lives are in God's hands, not mine.

This sorry time

Not many Australian-born people become Christians. In my Hobart and Sydney churches - both around the 150 mark - I reckon it's about 2 each year. Significantly more international students come to faith, but there's still a vast number of people who haven't had the Christian message explained, who have refused to listen, or who have listened but disagreed.

We celebrate the salvation of these one or two, as we ought (Luke 15:7, 10). It's the next step that concerns me. When we speak of these people, we often add some vague comment about "others" who've also been saved. There is something right about this - for we don't always know what becomes of people who, say, come to church only once. It's good to think that God had mercy on them.

However I think this sort of comment is also motivated by a desire to protect God's reputation. Again, there's something good about this (Exodus 33:15-16). Yet God does not need us to blur the facts. He's perfectly able to look after his own reputation. The exile and the cross both brought great shame (Ezekiel 22:4-5; 36:20; Matthew 27:39-44), but he still has concern for his holy name and brings things to bear so that all might see his glory (Ez 36:21-23; 39:23, 27-28; Romans 14:10-12). He is still the same God in this - troubling - time when few are being saved. Perhaps we should rather mourn and beseech him to extend mercy, than speak as if things are better than they are.

Indifferent religion

On the weekend, a friend told me that she's quite happy with there being no God. She asked me what was wrong with that and I said nothing - if she's right. It's only if she's wrong that she's needs to worry. CS Lewis says it this way:

One must keep on pointing out that Christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance, and, if true, of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important.

From God in the Dock (Eerdmans, 1994), 101.
H/T David

Shooting for the vibe

I'm crap at learning anything off by heart. My memory's never been great, but these days it's in a sorry way. Trying to learn Ancient Greek and Hebrew over the last three years was a torturous experience - and now I have to learn Spanish.

I'm actually feeling fairly positive about this - I can already understand a fair bit of French and a little German and Italian, and I've listened to a heap of salsa music over the years. However I think that it will make things harder if I go about trying to connect each Spanish word to its English equivalent. That works if you can actually remember your vocabulary, but it's not much good for the likes of me. A friend suggested another way. Rather than giving each new word an English translation, you learn its definition in Spanish, using words you already know. That way the Spanish language holds together in your mind as an integrated whole, rather than a run of memorised words.

So I've ordered a primary school Spanish dictionary to help me in my quest. I've also got a book of short passages that will help me to skim-read and use the context to determine meaning. And I plan on watching lots of Spanish language films. I'll let you know how it goes.


H/T Ceanne

Don't ask and don't tell

It's pretty easy to tell when I'm about to do something sinful or unwise - I don't tell anyone and I sure don't ask their advice. The other day the better part of me found that other part swimming in this sort of blind rebellion. I was determined not to seek anyone's counsel, but in the end I made myself. My friends only gently hinted at the choice I should make, but the way they spoke was enough for me to regain my dignity. I'm glad of it now.

A different kind of evangelism

We run events. We walk up to people in the mall and ask to talk to them about Jesus. We start attending Zumba classes so we can meet new people. We sacrifice and we put ourselves out there so that many might hear and some be saved. And so we should.

But sometimes people come to us. They drop into church one Sunday - and never come back. Hopefully we make them feel welcome; but then we watch them go, these people who by their coming show that they are open to considering faith. I've begun to think that, if we are to spend our time and effort anywhere, it should be with these people. We could invite them out for a coffee after church, or help make up their team at the local pub quiz. Maybe then they'll feel comfortable coming back to church.


H/T Sarah

Rejoice with those who rejoice

Apparently the Psalms were written to be sung. Not just by an individual in the shower, but jointly by the community of believers. Sounds fair enough. But what about all those sad, sad black laments? Are we meant to stand together in church and sing "How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? . . . . How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart?" (Psalm 13:1-2)? If we are to mourn with those who mourn (Romans 12:15), then yes we must. If we neglect this use of the Psalter, then some in our midst will be forced to keep their mourning lonely and private.


H/T Kit

So anyway at work we had to...

Missionaries usually go to great efforts to help people understand what they've been doing - slide shows, visual props, memory aids. I saw it done differently the other day. My friend Jill came to my Bible study group and just told us a bit about what she's going to do. Then she answered our questions. The simplicity of her presentation actually helped me to understand what it will be like where she's going. I think that a more glitzy presentation can draw attention to cultural differences and make listeners doubt their ability to comprehend. But the way Jill did it was just like listening to someone talk about something that happened at work.

Another homage to my hometown

Hobart is like a beautiful, aged little town in Europe. The sort of town you wander around wondering what it would be like to live there; watching the locals to see if the beauty of their surroundings has somehow made them glow. Certainly, they are more intelligent, creative and vibrant than your suburban Joe. That's Hobart. But now you have to place the town under a mountain and beside a river and litter it with trees and well-tended gardens. So now the people are also earthy, ample, generous souls atuned to the seasons and the growing of things. They're sophisticated, but they dress down. That's my folks. It's swell being home.

The aroma of life

I've know about The Cross of Christ event for a long while and always planned to do a ring-round of my non-Christian friends in the days leading up to it. For as long as I've know about it I've been scared about this, being all too aware that, "To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life." (2 Corinthians 2:16). Actively inviting conflict and disapproval is not how I normally go about things. But in thinking it through this morning, I realised that, while the aroma of death response is a real possibility, it's not my responsibility. The news is good news and I should present it as such, with sincere excitement and joy. Suddenly the phonecalls got a whole heap easier.

Stocktake

That checklist folder also had a list from three years ago of things I wanted to get better at. Some had Bible college in mind; others were more to do with ministry or life. I'm really pleased to say that I now feel confident in my ability to preach and discern false teaching, and in my knowledge and understanding of the Old Testament. There's still a way to go when it comes to: discipling/training people, biblical theology, figuring out how telling strangers about Jesus should fit into my routine, being vulnerable with people when I'm weak, and being aware of other peoples' body language and its significance. If you'd like to pray for me about these, that would be fantastic.

The rubber and the road

In packing up my stuff to head back to Tas, I came across a 'Monthly Goals/Checklists' folder. Let's make that yearly. Here's some wise counsel that I'm still trying to remember and put into practice:

• Don't just say 'I'll pray for you' - do something to help.
• Get better at noticing when people don't like me or react badly to me - change my behaviour, ask less of them, or be more apologetic.
• When delegating: take my time, assume the person doesn't know about the thing and they're not on board, explain the situation and tell them that I need their help (making the request more vulnerable and less demanding) and why I thought of them. Be more forthright and apologetic if I really need help.
• Make sure the things I'm involved in will continue once I move on.
  
• Harness negative energy - use complaints as an opportunity for them (/me) to serve.
  
• Change only one (significant) thing in the first year of working under someone.
• Show my life/methods/thinking/progress to those I'm training - don't hold off until I've got it all sussed.
• Treat people so that they will become the people I want them to be. Don't just think of them as they currently are.

Here we go folks - back into ministry. It's been a while.


H/T Mikey, Dan, David

A fit goodbye

I just bid a Bible college friend farewell. He said, "May many people be saved through your ministry." And instead of goodbye, he called out, "See you in Paradise!"

Amen brother.

The small matters

You know that guilty-sick feeling when you think you may have done something ungodly? It's like a small, reedy voice calling out to you from far away, intent on disturbing your peace. You will it to go away, but it persists. You pretend you can't hear it, but after a while that gets a little silly. What to do?

I think you should start by giving yourself the benefit of the doubt. This may sound like unChristian counsel, but I'm thinking of people like myself who sometimes have an overactive guilt reflex. It could well be that you just think 'this is the sort of thing that I would expect to be classified as boasting [or whatever]' and so you're feeling guilty. But maybe if you actually stop and examine your conscience and motivation, you will see that you are acting this way for perfectly fine reasons.

Sometimes after being nakedly honest with yourself, you will see that your motives are bad. When this happens you should take action. You will hate it, a massive part of you will fight against it and you will flirt with not going through with it. But shun that wide, easy path. Don't listen to the lies. Be faithful and pure in this small thing and your character and peace with God will flourish. You will gain beauty where before you had momentary, dirtied pleasure.

I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked

The project I'm writing at the moment is all about heaven, so you'd think it'd be lighting my heart and mind. Unfortunately it doesn't always work that way. I was visiting some friends who were up from Tassie a few weeks back. Ruth can smell a good deal at a thousand paces, so they'd secured a room in a fancy hotel overlooking Circular Quay. They took me to the roof to show me the swimming pool. It was a cute little pool, with a spa beside and seats for anyone who wished to while away the day looking out over the bridge, the Opera House and the Quay. I imagined the sort of people who would do this - they'd come home from their productive, stimulating, high status jobs to their aesthetically satisfying penthouse apartments where they'd spend the summer evenings in the company of sophisticated, glowing friends, drinking good wine and jumping in the pool. Actually now I'm starting to really think about the people, I'm not sure I'd enjoy their company; but the idea sprung to my mind in a flash, and I envied them and pitied my lot. To steady myself I said, "Maybe heaven will be like this," to which Ruth very helpfully replied "Well, it certainly won't be any worse."

Heaven. It certainly won't be any worse than the best thing you know.

What he says, as he says it

I reckon you need to approach the Bible with a bit of a laid-back attitude if you're to make good sense of what it says. The basic message's simple: Christ died for our sins as the Scriptures said he would, was buried, raised three days later as the Scriptures said he would be, and then he appeared to Peter and the Twelve. Laid-back or uptight, it's pretty clear.

But it's not all like that. God says different things in different places. And you've got to be attentive to genre, and to what's gone before and what's coming just after. There's order and systematisation to the whole thing, but there's also paradox and differing emphases and some things that are too glorious to really understand.

So you need a laid-back attitude and an open mind. You've got to go into the thing prepared to ditch what the good guys have thought for the last however many years. You've got to go: well, that doesn't sit at all comfortably with my culture and I don't see that anywhere around, but, heck, it's there in plain writing, so who am I to disbelieve? But if you go in hard, you'll end up wrangling all sorts of possibilities - it could mean this, it's open to that. But you're picking its bones - you're not honouring the tenor, the substance or the emphasis of what God had penned. You've got to sit back a little and let it say what it has to say. Of course, there's no point being dumb about it - if something's puzzling, if it doesn't add up, you need to think hard. You need to prod and pull and examine. But just don't start off like that - begin sitting back and stay that way until you see that there's something that needs to be checked.

But be careful of being too laid-back, assuming a lazy postmodernism that's open to all options because it can't be bothered seeking the truth. That's just as disrespectful as going in hard.

Humility, that's the key.

The better way

I met up with my pastor today and he asked me what I'm reading. I told him Jonathan Franzen's Freedom for next month's book club, which I'm really enjoying. It's yet another one of those novels in which everyone is wise to the ways of the world, marries for bad reasons and raises disfunctional children. So it's bleak but you almost forget to notice because you're carried along by the ironic, cynically humorous tone.

Don't you think it's sad how we're awash in irony and cynicism? How if a person were to speak of or treasure things like purity, joy and what is true, they would sound like a five year old? "Don't you think we moved on from that a while back?" Maturity's screwed. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

An Open Letter To My Blog

Dear Mr Blog,

I'm sorry I haven't been there for you like I should. I know I've been distant. Would you believe me if I said it wasn't personal? All these other things in life demand my energy and I just haven't been prioritising time with you. I'm sorry but it's the truth. I do enjoy our time together, thinking things through. And I can see a day approaching when I'll be there for you again. I know it's awful of me, but can I just ask you to wait another month? Things will be different then. I know they will.

From your old friend, confidant and sparring partner,
Fiona

Gomorra

Tonight I watched an amazing film called Gomorrah, about the Camorra of southern Italy. It's understated, real and has a beauty to it. The film's based on a book of the same name written by Roberto Saviano, an intensely streetwise and intelligent man. The interview with him in the extras is well worth a listen. His description (translated from the Italian) of what drives teenagers to murder is uncomfortably familiar:

On the one hand, it [murder] makes you feel like a man, macho. On the other hand, it feels like you are climbing the social ladder. This aspect is less understood by people who do not live that reality. When these kids approached the clans, during and after the feud - I had the chance to see it happen during the feud - they didn't really want to get rich. Nor did they want to become killers. They only wanted to be cool. They only wanted to show off. They wanted girls to turn around as they were passing on the street, saying, "See who that was?" Then it doesn't matter if you look like a loser, if you are one of those boys with a horrible grey line under your nose, you know, the first teenage moustaches. You may be an ugly teenager, but if you are part of the system, they will fear you and therefore respect you. And therefore desire you.

Here he speaks about what it is like to be born into this society:

The Camorra brands you forever with the idea that ethics is just a loser's excuse. If you say that you are a nobody because your hands are clean, or that you didn't achieve a certain position because you refused to compromise, the Camorrista will look at you and say, "You didn't make it. That's all." To say that something wasn't right is not seen as a choice, but as an excuse. If you want something, you take it and that's it. If you can't, it means you are a loser. There are no other ways to see this.

And finally, his reflections on (the perversion of) the entrepreneurial spirit:

Every boss is obsessed with cinema, not only in Naples, but I think also in Calabria, Sicily, the US and Nigeria. Very rarely does cinema look at crime. But it is very true that criminals watch films a lot. The most loved character is still Tony Montana. Tony loses everything. That's exactly the aim, as paradoxical as it sounds while I'm saying it, of every true man of power. He will grab the world and everything in it. Yet, he knows that he will have to lose everthing to pay for this choice. He'll lose his life, his family, love, everything. If you are not prepared to lose it all, you're a manager. Be a normal businessman. Where I'm from, they say, "You're rich without risk", meaning you're worthless. If power comes after your wife, your mistress, your children, your house, your holidays . . . no way you'll never be able, as Cutolo would say, to decide on other peoples' life and death.

This is the path that some men climb, and for very human motives.

Arguing, with love

The other day I updated my facebook status. 47 comments later and the thread was done. This was largely due to my provocative comments. It all began with: Fiona Lockett is pouring over the Catechism of the Catholic Church . . . as you do . . . I came back after a couple of days away and found friends saying all sorts of positive things about Catholicism. Here's how I responded:

I'm feeling conflicted here. On one hand I want to say a hearty "amen" to your experiences of meeting wonderful, faithful *Christian* Catholic people. I have had this too.

But on the other hand, I feel enormously uncomfortable about any sort of wholesale softening towards the Catholic church. I firmly believe that in a number of different ways Catholic doctrine undermines the sufficiency of Jesus' person and sacrifice, and, in so doing, cause him to be a little less worthy of our praise and a little less capable of winning our pardon. This is no small matter - it's the biggest deal there is.

I'll quote from one reply. Before I do so, I want to say that all my interlocutors have given their okay for me to do this. I have, however, sometimes shortened what they said and only occasionally have I provided the surrounding context. I have tried not to misrepresent anyone, but may have been unsuccessful. So, the reply:

I have certainly experienced much that is very carnal and idolatrous in the Pente fraternity... ranging from a totally anthropocentric "gospel" ("Come to Jesus SO THAT... He can save you, heal you, make you rich... etc") and the cult and worship of leaders... all the more dangerous, because most feligreses don't know (and would deny hotly) that they are doing so.

Fiona: My (still extremely limited) experience of the scene is that the closer you get (geographically, but especially doctrinally) to "Rome"... the worse are the anomalies and the undermining of Jesus' all-sufficiency - by politics, greed, self-protection and worse (Conspiracies reeking of the films "daVinci Code" and "Angels and Demons" really exist, I am convinced).

Contrarywise, the more you find an inspired, Spirit-Filled (whether he knows he is or not is immaterial) priest, under a bishop who gives freedom of individual expression to his underlings... to that degree will you find the very best that the RCC has to offer, with the least "Romanic" contamination.

Today, a GOOD Christian Catholic priest knows, lives, and preaches that Jesus did it all and does it all, and will point people away from any sort of worship either of saints, Mary, or iconry in general. Contemporary RCC teaching (admittedly, frowned upon heavily by the non-Christian Catholic heirarchy) says that all iconry, saints and even DEVOTION to (not worship of) Mary herself... are little more than windows through which our humanity can make meaningful, bilateral spirit-to-spirit contact with Divinity.

And here are some later responses:

Show me a Christian, any Christian, who is either ignorant of or perfectly at ease with their denominations doctrine and I'll show you a Christian with an agenda that goes well beyong following Jesus. Does that mean they are any more or less a Christian than you or I? Not for me to judge.

and:

Sifting the catechism is a good way to find things to ague with. It isn't a good way to access the richness of Catholic faith as it is lived. A question worth investigating: "What is the role and relative importance of doctrine in Catholic faith?"

which was followed by:

@A... GREAT comment! My point exactly: The very core of phariseism is seeking out those who were "doctrinally impure" and throwing stones at them - figuritively and otherwise. (NATURALLY... all for the glory of God, needless to say) ....

I don't read Jesus anywhere saying, "Blessed are the doctrinally pure, for they will see the Kingdom of Heaven" or, "Unless ye have your eschatology perfect, ye shall be cast into outer darness with much gnashing of teeth".

He DID speak a lot about Loving God, Loving one another as His disciples and like themes.

and finally:

I'd go as far as saying that if you died a hideous death as a convicted muderous thief who knew nothing of doctrine of any kind, or even Jesus except for a mysterious loving revelation in your final moments that brought you to a place where ... you could allow yourself to fall into the everlasting arms of the great I AM..., you'd still be saved. You know what? We are all that guy no matter Catholic, Protestant, Mormon, Muslim, Buddhist or Hindu. And sadly, no matter wether we have followed the way our whole lives or just the last few seconds. We are not saved or damned by our understanding of doctrine. Our petty differences of opinion on points of law just get in the way of us accepting that we are accepted, by grace thorough Christ who is so much more.

To be honest with you, I found these replies profoundly disturbing. It is this that I would like to explore. At first I wasn't sure just what I was reacting to, but later I realised that I was troubled by the assumptions that my friends were working from. As I see it, they were thinking that: (a) doctrinal differences between Catholics and Protestants are no more serious than those between the various Protestant denominations; (b) doctrine has a limited role to play - sincere faith is more important; and (c) generalisations about the beliefs held by a group of people are hardly worth making - it is only really helpful to speak about the beliefs of individuals/smaller communities. (This last point stemming from a fourth assumption - that the belief of a group as-a-whole is likely to have limited impact on the individuals who make up that group.)

I, on the other hand, was assuming that: (a) doctrinal differences between Catholics and Protestants are way more serious - indeed fundamental - than those between Protestant denominations [I have included my reasons in small print below]; (b) sincerity of faith is never enough to save anyone - it has to be faith in something true, well, in someone true - the divine man Jesus Christ who died that people might be forgiven; (c) a group will always make demands on and affect its members - in diverse ways, to be sure, yet there will be common threads that make speaking about the group as-a-whole a profitable exercise. (This last may seem like a minor point, but the postmodern insistence on being able to find Truth only in an individual's experience has the lamentable effect of silencing discussion.)

Actually, when I said my friends' assumptions that distressed me, that wasn't quite true. What disturbed me most was that my claim that the Lord Jesus is dishonoured and belittled by the Catholic faith was never really at the heart of the discussion.

[The specific concerns I expressed about Catholic doctrine:
"I'm afraid I'm still feeling profoundly uncomfortable - firstly, because of the sort of thing that C applauded ("all iconry, saints and even DEVOTION to [not worship of] ...Mary herself... are little more than windows through which our humanity can make meaningful, bilateral spirit-to-spirit contact with Divinity."). I'm afraid that this is exactly the sort of thing that I see as undermining the sufficiency of Jesus' work in gaining us direct, personal access to the Father. So that's the first reason I'm feeling uncomfortable.

The second is that, even if this were resolved, there are a number of other ways in which I think Catholic doctrine diminishes Jesus. Here's some I can think of:
- the belief that conversion happens when you get baptised irrespective of whether you believe;
- the belief that participating in the sacraments is *essential* for a person to be saved;
- the belief that at least some confession and forgiveness *must* be mediated through a priest;
- the belief that you have to be good enough for God in this life, or else make it up in purgatory.

It seems to me that these things run dangerously close to turning Jesus into little more than a divine helper.

But I want to make it clear that I think that some/many Catholics are Christians and should be treated as brothers and sisters in Christ. But this is exactly my point - they are only Christian if they are either ignorant of the import of these sort of Catholic doctrines, or if they reject some of what the Catholic church teaches."]

World's Best

I really enjoy watching music videos. They somehow manage to satisfy my desire for creativity and mindlessness at the same time. Here's the best ones I know.

Michael Jackson "Smooth Criminal". I'm a sucker for men doing synchronised dancing, and this dancing is so sharp and stylish. If you don't want to watch the whole thing, the best bit's from 6:39 on. Michael Jackson rocked.

Justin Timberlake "My Love" and "Like I Love You". I'm also a sucker for JT. He's very baby-faced in "Like I Love You". Absolutely classic dancing. "My Love" has more creativity and style. Justin is a fine dancer - he's sharp and he's got attitude. You can tell he really feels the music.

OK Go "Here it Goes Again" and "W*F". "Here it Goes Again" is the song they do on the treadmills. It's so funny. "W*F" is the song with that wicked special effect, the name of which I've forgotten. Anyway it's mesmerizing.

Fatboy Slim "Weapon of Choice". Totally unexpected. The sort of dancing that's extra-cool because it authentically reflects the character of the dancer.

The Avalanches "Since I Left You". Ditto the above. This one's also very sweet.

Janet Jackson "Rhythm Nation". Sharp as sharp. Impressive stuff.

Beyoncé "Crazy in Love" and "Single Ladies". "Crazy in Love" has some cool scenes. I especially like the colourful closing scene - there's some sweet dancing there. And Beyoncé is so breathtakingly beautiful that I always enjoy watching her. It's somewhat sleazy/sexual though, so might be really unhelpful for some guys to watch this clip. "Single Ladies" however is totally awesome. This is my alltime favourite music video. Majorly impressive, sassy dancing. Beyoncé rocks!

PS While I've linked to YouTube videos, I have purchased all of these videos that are available on itunes. That makes me feel okay.

What gives him the right?

Josh did a great job of preaching on Mark 12 at church the other week. (He kicks off at 0:23.)

Keen & Kapable

On Sunday the kids of my Sydney church put on a fundraiser for me! It took us all a lot of organising. Directing a bunch of kids to put cans in ice, write signs and cut bread rolls in half is, I imagine, not wholly unlike herding cats. And I never want to make a 'Latin American' figurine again. But once it was all set up and the sausages were rolling in, us adults just sat back and watched the kids take care of everything. In all it was a cute, colourful, professional affair. Why do your own promo when you can get a bunch of kids to do it for you?

Lovely men

The other day David Cook told us about how, back before he became a Christian and not long after his father had accepted Christ, some religious men came to their house showing photos of the Holy Land on a slide projector (the new technology). The men were lovely men, and, when they had gone, David's father asked his son if he should invite them back. David said he didn't know, and his father replied, "Yes, I think you're right. I don't think we should invite them back" as if that was what he had said. He went on: "I don't know much about Christianity, but I do know it's about grace and faith, and they didn't talk about either of those." May we follow David's father's lead and steer well clear of pleasant people who would take our eyes off Jesus.

Spring clean

A few days off - time to find a beautiful new template and to import/destroy my old blog. *ahhh*

More posts on the way.

It's in the air!

In the last post I spoke about the liberal milieu of the poetry festival I attended. It was a curious phenomenon because there's a very real sense in which poets are the most ordinary of folk, simple observers of the human and natural worlds. Yet even description often carries an underlying morality. The better poets have the vision and discipline to push past socially acceptable grooves, but a mass of people can't help but create an atmosphere. So topics such as motherhood, the migrant experience, George Bush, suicide and observations penned from a café table are all warmly welcomed. Other topics teeter on the edge of comfortableness - but may be appreciated all the more for that. Then there's others that would never actually be written about - hell would be one; a (morally negative) apprisal of abortion another.

This sort of thing became plain when, during a panel discussion, an audience member asked: if a poet is themselves anti-Semitic, it is still okay to read their work? There was a pause, then a number of people tittered at the questioner's audacity - the panel members among them. Yet they knew that there can never be (never?) anything wrong with an honestly-meant question, so prepared to respond. You could almost see them weighing their words before they spoke, such was the delicacy of the topic. Why so delicate and so confronting?

I think it was because the questioner was pushing the room to consider the consequences of their adoration of tolerance, on the one hand, and the evil of Nazism, on the other. She was forcing their collective hand. All were acutely aware that any answer had to display a thoroughgoing rejection of Nazism, an equally thoroughgoing embracing of Judaism, and an affirmation of tolerance and freedom of speech/reading. A minefield indeed!

But no-one commented on the untenable nature of what was going on. Instead they rose valiantly to the challenge. One panel member said that she personally couldn't read something if she knew it was coming from a bad place. Another said that you could read it to garner fuel for an attack. And another pointed out that covert - and racist - passing over of peoples is often worse than anything explicit. And then there was the one that heartened me: Don't refuse to read it just because you don't like the guy, because all humans are arseholes on some level. Amen to that.

Inventing the tradition

I spent the day at a poetry festival. One of the better ways to spend a day . . . if you like that sort of thing, and, let's be honest, it is a niche artform and likely to remain that way. It would be helped by more/better exposure in schools though.

As a Christian it was a strange environment to find myself in. This was epitomised at the end of the day when the lady who received the prize for best indigenous poetry read out a poem railing bitterly against Christian missionaries. This was followed by the prize for best religious/spiritual poem which was won by a lady who is currently in the middle of a months' long Buddhist retreat in Japan and whose poem was about Siddhartha Gautama.

And there I was in the midst of it all. I was mainly there for a bit of r&r, so I wasn't too stressed about being a Christian presence, but I also didn't want to be selfishly looking inwards. So I prayed for opportunities to speak with people, and for the wherewithal to make the most of these opportunities. And it's my joy to tell you that God answered my prayers. I overcame my introversion and chatted comfortably with the people around me. And at lunchtime when the people I was sitting with asked what I did, I calmly told them that I was a student at a Bible college and was planning to be a missionary in Latin America. They were good about it but it was obvious I had overstepped a powerful, invisible line. But, thank God, I remained unashamed and unruffled and was even prepared to press on with a little talk about Christian things.

I'll post more on the festival soon. For now, let me finish by saying that LK Holt is a kick-ass poet.

Leeches, hills and hard beds

Today I was speaking to a certain anonymous someone. I'll only tell you that their first name was David and their last name rhymed with book. Anyway this mystery person was claiming that there's no point to beautiful scenary unless you can get there in a car. As someone who used to do a lot of pretty serious bushwalking I had a few things to say . . .

1. Life is simple out there. Everything gets pared back, reduced to a purer form. Responsibilities and roles drop away and you simply exist.
   
2. The challenge is enjoyable. Having to be tough and savvy enough to achieve physical - and perhaps technical - feats is stimulating. There's an air of valour about the whole endeavour.
   
3. It's a world of technical knowledge and skill. Bushwalking and rockclimbing (etc) are not unlike an artisan craft. That world can be intoxicating once you've stepped in.
   

I might have spoken about how beautiful it is out there, but I guess my adversary acknowledged that. It is beautiful though. It's hard to convey to people who've only ever seen wilderness calenders. For seven years whenever I was visiting or living in Tassie I would routinely go bushwalking with my friends and see the most sweetly beautiful and staggeringly majestic sights. We'd wander through lush rainforest and make our camps by pretty mountain tarns or at the base of soaring cliffs, and think it unremarkable.

It's funny though . . . I've barely been bushwalking these last few years. Doing multiday walks takes a degree of mental toughness that I can't seem to muster any more - becoming a Christian has made me a little softer. And for a while there I was felt as though bushwalking was somehow incompatible with femininity or intellectualism. I'm over that now, yet I still don't find myself rushing out. It's partly because all my bushwalking friends have got little kids, but mainly because I find it near-impossible to do anything by half-measures. I can't quite see my way clear to going bushwalking from time-to-time. I know it's strange, but there it is. Ah, but I'll still defend it to the death.

The long view

I'm told that living in a culture not your own is stressful. I guess I'll find that out for myself soon enough. A missionary who spoke to us at college last week counsels new missionaries to perform at maybe 70% of what they're capable of. That way they'll be able to not only deal with the day-to-day stress of being in a new place, but they'll also have energy left to cope when something more major happens.


H/T Ros

Look again

A few posts ago I spoke about Noel Pearson's exposé of what is necessary for Aboriginal peoples' economic advancement. In an earlier article, he was eager to "make clear that my position has never been that the total expenditure on indigenous affairs is too large" [italics mine]. Indeed he argued that "It is patently obvious that during the past 222 years, the pendulum has never swung too far in favour of Aboriginal Australians in any political, social, economic or cultural sector of society."

Pearson's article was written in response to Tony Abbott's categorisation of 'welcome to country' as "genuflection to political correctness". Pearson argues that this sort of comment serves to foster the idea that Aboriginal people have too much of everything.

"It is wrong to start a debate in any indigenous policy area about whether Australia should move from a low level to an even lower level. Doing so contributes only to the perception that the low level is an excessive level and we need to cut down on these excesses because the pendulum has swung too far."

Noel Pearson, "It's Uplifting to Stand on Ceremony," The Weekend Australian, Focus section, March 20-21, page 12.

Community

Tim Chester came and spoke at college about The Crowded House, his church planting organisation. He was winsome and engaging and I loved most of what he had to say. But he pretty much said that it's impossible to have real community unless you are frequently meeting your brothers and sisters and sharing your everyday lives with each other. It is only within this intense expression of community that evangelism, discipleship, accountability and openness will properly occur, or perhaps even occur at all.

I like the motivation behind his model and I even like the model itself. But I'm not convinced that we all need to change our church structures. I feel like community is still valid even if it is less frequent/intense. I even think that there are peculiarly good things about doing it the traditional way. There's working within an imperfect structure and making it beautiful. And there's the joy of singing and talking with people you don't know so well, just because you are brothers and sisters in Christ.

I don't know if my reasons are clear. It was hard to pin them down. Please ask if they aren't - or argue with them if you disagree.

Foibles

For some reason - probably a strange one - I find watching both The Bill and Insiders very comforting. They're the visual equivalent of eating chocolate. No, that was probably going a little far.

The rage against God

Christopher Hitchens' brother Peter is a Christian and he has just published a book. I've flicked through the introduction and it's an exciting start. But after watching some YouTube videos I'm a little concerned that Peter's complicated relationship with his brother may result in a shortness of tone, or that he may so focus on the damage that atheism can do to a country that Christianity will end up sounding like nothing more than a vehicle for social good . . . but I'm sure these things won't evenuate and instead the book will bring honour to the good and living God.

A serious decision

In Anglo Australian culture the mark of a serious decision is when a person makes that decision for themself. Thus it is Christian parents' dearest hope that at some future time, each of their children will decide to follow Christ. But in other cultures the mark of a serious decision is when a community makes it together.

So when Western people head off to India to tell people about Jesus, they will typically invite the individuals listening to make a personal decision to give their life to Christ. Unfortunately the local people will infer from this that it is a minor decision, no more important than the decision to stop and have a cup of tea with a friend. Anything more serious than that - and nothing could be more serious than a decision about your eternal destiny - is always done in consultation with others.


H/T CB Samuel

Climbing the stairs

As you probably know, I'm a massive fan of Noel Pearson. In last weekend's paper he wrote yet another unsettling, visionary article in which he outlined three "key articles of liberal philosophy" which are passed by when it comes to Aboriginal affairs.1 They are self-interest, choice and private property.

He identified self interest as the fundamental driver behind all development and observed that the "great western embarrassment about self-interest . . . results in Westerners failing to understand that the means by which they secure their advantage, and thereby provide amenity to others, is through the pursuit of self-interest." He also argued that ownership of private property is essential for development - and the opposite of traditional Aboriginal communal ownership.

His conclusion was that if Aboriginal people are to prospere they will need to "separate the domain of communalism in our heritage, cultures, languages and identities from the domain of liberalism in our lives". He cited "countless examples of societies and peoples who continue to maintain communalist arrangements in one sphere of their lives, while maintaining a liberal sphere in their economic arrangements."

Any thoughts?


1 The Weekend Australian 24-25th July 2010, Commentary section, page 14

We'll see you when we get home

I hope this isn't disrespectful but I want to link to a blog about a little boy's life. His name was Edward "Teddy" Paul Bayliss and he was the son of friends of a guy whose blog I follow. He was born very early and died after only three weeks. The reason I want to link to the blog is because I found his Dad's attitude very beautiful and amazing. The posts are threaded with joy at having Teddy around even though the whole time things were grim, and there is such thankfulness at the blessing of Teddy's little self. I was also struck by his Dad's confident anticipation that his son would enjoy a wonderful life in heaven. Knowing Jesus changes everything.

The blog only has two pages, so short was Teddy's life. Here's the first and here's the second.

streamofconsciousness

It's ridiculously late at night, but I feel like writing. I've been sitting here for hours, slowly ripping or burning or whatever my CDs into itunes and enjoying a sharp thinking blog. Channel [V] plays in the background, a pastiche of colour, movement and sound. It's the eve of my rest day and my brain unfurls. I love this time but am always left a little disappointed. Sometimes I go into the city on Saturday and wander around between errands or whatever I'm there for. Basically my brain/heart/spirit love being confronted by lots of stimuli. But I always want to respond with the same creativity I have observed, yet I never quite know what to do. I still have some small hope that I might one day learn to be a poet - so, I still have some small hope ;-). Tomorrow I'm off to see my dear friend Joan who knows about things like narrative and metre and may just understand the difficulty I have using creative expression I either do not feel or have not yet envisaged. For now there are girls in Alice in Wonderland costumes, cocktail bars and disapproving older men. I don't know what the song is because the TV's on mute. The last of my loud CDs is uploading. It's raining again and I'd better let in the cat.

Each day I ask myself

The suburb where I live has its main shopping drag on the other side of the railway line to my place. Then there's a secondary line of shops on my side of the tracks. Lots of people drive past these shops on their way to other places, but almost no-one walks. So how is it that all these shops survive?!? Let me show you what I mean:

EcoSensual is one of the newer shops. It sells candles. I have never seen anyone go in.

As well as repairing watches and clocks this shop provides engraving and pearl restringing services and you can sell your scrap gold to them. Never seen a person go in.

Sydney Golf House is not all it could be. Ditto the customers.

The butchers was an art studio by the time I arrived and has since closed up. I would not get my teeth looked at by Doobov Dental Laboratory for any money. Nor would anyone else from what I can see.

You'd better hope the pavlovas are in better shape than the building. Again no customers, but I have at least seen people in there.

If anyone can tell me how these shops stay in business I'd be most grateful. They can't all be running drugs.

A little Fundy . . .

I find it emotionally difficult to read authors with whom I disagree . . . This is obviously something of a problem for my Bible college career . . . One of the things that turns me off theologians in particular is their quest for biblical schemata. I applaud their desire to think biblically about modern situations (say, democracy), but I often find that they analyse the biblical account using categories which, while not exactly unfounded, do not arise naturally from the biblical material. It's as if they're squeezing it into trousers that don't quite fit - the content's still all there but the presentation's changed. My preference would be to leave biblical themes and categories sitting as they are and to let them speak into the modern situation to whatever extent they do. If they 'fall short' in any way, I would prefer to use prayer and careful thought to guide my actions, trusting that God will have his mighty, shepherding hand over these faltering things.

Faith [feyth] -noun

Faith is putting all your eggs in one basket - because the basket is a lovely, sturdy one that you can rely on.

Hands up if you're middle class

I glanced down at my trolley the other day, and couldn't help but smile at how stereotyped I am.

Place and people

Hobart people make me feel at home. There's an instant, almost familial, relationship between us all. I think it's got to do with the way the city is bordered by the mountain and river. The landscape makes us look inward, turning to each other for community. Living in view of the mountain and river also means that nature is part of all our lives. We see the snow on the mountain and feel the chill of the winter air, and in summer we go camping in the national parks and swim at the beach. This makes Hobart people grounded, down-to-earth sort of folk.

In Sydney I love the opposite of these. Sydney is full of strangers sure enough, but it's a wonderfully heady mix of strangers from many lands. And living in a city encourages people to look outward with minds open to the reaches of industry and creativity.

So anyway in cricket . . .

Seeing how as I'm an expert on raising missionary kids, I thought I'd pass on my two bobs' worth about how to settle them back into life in their (parents') home country. I reckon it would be massively helpful to buddy up with another family who have similiar aged children, and just spend a lot of time with them in the first few weeks. That way the other kids could teach your kids how to play the different sports and computer games, and explain the backstories of the latest TV shows.

He did this to demonstrate his justice

At a Sydney Writers' Festival event I attended a few weeks ago, Christopher Hitchens spoke about the gravity of misapplied words. The example he used was "child abuse", which he argued implies that all that is needed is repentence and forgiveness, when what is actually needed is justice for the "rape, torture and molestation of children". Leaving the language question aside, this example told me something about Hitchen's understanding of the relationship between forgiveness and justice. I hope that some day he finds out that in the death of Jesus justice was wholly served, and that it is only because of this that repentence and forgiveness are now available.

Prudes

We have become reverse-Victorians. They spoke openly about death but never mentioned sex, wheras we speak openly of sex but never mention death.


H/T Kirk

Over all

Paul Hiebert, a very clever man, came up with a dumb term for an insightful concept. He observed that people in non-Westerner cultures recognise myriad spiritual beings, which are regarded as very much involved in everyday life. Westerners tend to ignore the existance of these beings, and divide the world into an upper region (where God dwells) and a lower (where we dwell). And so he called the neglected realm of other spiritual beings the 'excluded middle'. The reason I think this is a silly term is because I don't think that the Bible gives us warrant to think of these beings as having their own special domain. Rather, the Bible speaks of God and his angels, and satan and his demons all in the one 'spiritual' category.

Anyway I wanted to say that when people from the non-Western world become Christians they really struggle to believe that God has power over the spirit world. So when they get sick they think this is somehow out of God's domain and they go to a witchdoctor for answers. But we Westerners do much the same thing - when we become Christians we really struggle to believe that God has power over the material world. So when our car breaks down we think that this is somehow out of God's domain and we fiddle around under the bonnet. God is, in truth, more powerful than all things and is ever in control of all things, and it is good for us to recognise this.


H/T Chris

Sexual temptation

David Cook did a guest lecture about sexual temptation in church leadership. I took notes (which is after all the point).

Ten reasons for vulnerability:

1. Your office is in an isolated location.
2. You have a close relationship with people.
3. You have access to peoples' bedrooms when they are sick. (The only other profession that has this privilege is medicine).
4. You may be subject to stimulating conversation (eg by people telling about
   their sexual past because they mistakenly believe that you're not subject to sexual temptation).
5. You're eager to please.
6. You're susceptible to criticism (and so seek affection and support in its wake).
7. You (and those around you) suffer from the myth of invulnerability.
8. You may have weakened relationships with your family.
9. You may have had inadequate training about sexual temptation.
10. Your leadership status may turn you into a sex object.

His suggestions for prevention were to:

1. Have a public office and be careful to use appropriate touch;
2. Remember your secure standing in the Lord;
3. Spend quality time with your family;
4. Know yourself;
5. Be professional (eg leave your office door open, limit conversations, don't
   give assurance of confidentiality, always be able to share things with your
   spouse);
6. Take responsibility (like King David did);
7. Be accountable to someone (end by asking each other if you've lied in the conversation).

Bold compassion

Ash explains why Christian social ethics can be championed in a spirit of love rather than panic:

No institution that is part of the created order can be destroyed by human disobedience. Human nonconformity leads not to the destruction of the order, but to judgment on human beings. No Christian movement needs to defend marriage: rather we seek to protect human beings against the damage done to them by cutting across the grain of the order of marriage.

Ibid, 82.

Changed

It's dangerous and fruitless to be more enamoured with searching than with finding. Ash says it well:

[H]ermeneutics is more than simple open-mindedness. It has been said that the purpose of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth at a meal, is in order to close it on something. So Thiselton adds the perceptive observation of Paul Ricoeur that hermeneutics must involve a double dynamic: on the one hand, the interpreter must be inherently suspicious, particularly of himself and his presuppositions, but on the other, he must be willing to listen to the text and to obey as he understands . . . . To sit under the text of Scripture is to be uncomfortable; we ought to be suspicious of any hermeneutic which renders us more comfortable. The command to repent and believe is fundamental to the gospel and we never move beyond its stringent discipline.

C Ash, Marriage: Sex in the Service of God (Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2003), 79.

It's like . . .

Over the last few weeks I've preached the same sermon three times. David Cook said it would be a good idea. I was worried about losing my mojo, but he turned out to be right. The first time was in the midst of college madness and I didn't have time to think of any illustrations. Everyone commented on the clarity of my logic and structure. The second time I hardly changed a thing other than including some illustrations, and suddenly everyone was saying that my structure could be clearer. I guess this is because when you give an illustration everyone 'gets off the bus', and needs to be reminded where they were when they get back on again.

Classic Mikey treaties

Here's some Mikey gold for the two of you who didn't get here via his blog:

The value of working really hard

The value of careful planning [a real life example]

A critique of the house church movement [be sure to read all four parts!]

Cool conferences

SMBC is quietly putting on three ripper conferences in August and September. The first is a series of talks held over six Tuesday evenings (from the 3rd August to the 21st September) at which Ray Galea, Leon Stead, John Chapman, Simon Manchester and Grant Thorp will be speaking. It's to celebrate David Cook's 25th anniversary as principal of SMBC. The format's the really exciting thing - first the speaker will talk about the sort of preaching that's needed today, then they'll give their sermon, and then the speaker and David Cook will discuss how the sermon was prepared.

The second conference is from the 7th-9th September and it's on Communicating Isaiah. The exciting thing about this one is the speakers - our own Kirk Patston who teaches Isaiah and has just written a commentary and who I can't recommend enough; Paul House, the man who wrote that Old Testament Theology; and the lovely Ray Galea.

The last conference is on the 11 September and it's about Preaching the Old Testament with Integrity. Kirk and Paul will be speaking at that one too.

Language immersion from the comfort of home

If you want to learn another language and memorising vocabulary isn't your thing, here's what you should do. You should switch your gmail and facebook accounts over to that language: then everytime you go online you will have a small immersion experience. If you don't know what something says you can always use an online translator. To my delight, the internet today conspired to amplify the experience. Now, whenever I hover my cursor over a word on the internet, a pop-up window gives me a list of Spanish equivalents. ¡Eso!

Something to say

Why does writing on world mission often use shoddy exegesis? Here's an example for you. The gospel of Mark records Jesus' refusal to continue teaching and healing in the town of Capernaum. David and Joyce Huggett think they know why: "Jesus’ need for space, then, was urgent, and He did not hesitate to make sure He had such space, even though at times this caused Him to close His ears to cries for help and to turn away from people".1 Wheras in actual fact, if you read the very next verse, Jesus has another explanation for why he acts this way: "Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come." (Mark 1:38)

My guess is that because it's a practical field, people turn on the 'common sense' part of their brain. So I hear people basing their views of the 'missionary call' on the experience of famous missionaries or guaging the rightness of a course of action solely by the effectiveness of its outcome (eg "I wouldn't normally agree with women leading churches, but there are no mature Christian men here, so it must be okay for the female missionary to lead the church.") Coming up with a Bible verse or a general Christian principle to support the decision is something of an afterthought and lacking in rigour (as the above example shows).

This sort of thinking drives me crazy! If the Bible doesn't provide any practical help for everyday life and decision-making then why are we bothering with the whole enterprise? Is it only for heaven that we are Christians?!? No!


1 D Huggett, J Huggett, "Jesus Christ: The Heart of Member Care" in K O'Donnell (ed) Doing Member Care Well (William Carey Library, 2002), 209-21.

Back home

The other day a lady was telling me about her daughter who went to Asia for work. She happened to end up living in the same city as some local women who'd been students in Australia and had become Christians during their stay. The daughter has ended up being something of a spiritual mentor and teacher to these women. What a great ministry opportunity! - going to Asia specifically to provide support and leadership to returned students! Dear reader, you should go.

The glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle

Muslim people have a major issue with the very idea that God would come to earth as a man. For them Allah is so transcendent it is impossible for him to associate with people. I wonder if the book of Exodus might be a good book to share with Muslims as it's all about the awesome, terrifying and dangerous privilege of having Yahweh dwell among the people of Israel.* The Gospels also see the Jewish leaders struggling with the idea that this ordinary man from Nazareth could be a Prophet, let alone Almighty God, so they could be a good place to turn to next.


* How about these verses:
"the LORD said to him, 'Go down and warn the people so they do not force their way through to see the LORD and many of them perish. Even the priests, who approach the LORD, must consecrate themselves, or the LORD will break out against them.' . . . . When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, "Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die." (19:21-22; 20:18-19)

Bated breath?

Hang in there folks. I've been super-busy at college, and still am, but I've written a few draft posts and have 5 Post-It notes jammed with new ideas. Consider this a helpful exercise in delayed gratification.

Authenticity V. Perfection

Sometimes, in the heat of discussion you go a little bit further than you would if it were an absolutely calm, considered, prepared, scripted remark.
. . . .
The statements that need to be taken absolutely as gospel truth is [sic] those carefully prepared, scripted remarks.
Tony Abbott, being interviewed by Kerry O'Brien on the 7:30 Report, 17 May 2010

It's been fascinating to see how Tony Abbott's rise to the top of Australian political life has forced public consideration of communication and integrity. Last week it got even more interesting. For years the public has been saying that we don't trust lying politicians, and all we want is someone who will come along and just say what they really believe, without massaging the truth in an ugly attempt to win votes. Last Saturday I attended a Sydney Writers' Festival event in which the journalist Annabel Crabb criticised people like Kevin Rudd for using grey filler speech to mark time and obscure the truth. She described such speech as risk-free because the speaker never commits themself to anything in clear speech.1 Interestingly, former NSW Premier Nathan Rees then pointed out that even if politicians go the other way they lose, because - like Tony Abbott - they get accused of being volatile and unreliable.

So is this what's happened to Tony Abbott? Was The Sydney Institute's Gerard Henderson right when, on last Sunday's Insiders program, he said: "all he was saying really was there's a difference between the printed word and the spoken word, and everyone knows that's true . . . . if he's saying that the spoken word is not very precise: the spoken word is not very precise." Or was Abbott admitting that he sometimes lies when he speaks? In which case, it all becomes very postmodern - should we admire him for being honest about his dishonesty, or should we ignore the fact that he was being honest and criticise his dishonesty?

The whole issue gets still more interesting when you consider the specific issue about which Kerry O'Brien accused Abbott of backflipping. David Marr, on the same Insiders program, pointed out:

[T]his is the crucial point about the whole thing. Why couldn't he say, "We've changed our mind"? The curious thing is in the political culture of this country he chose to say "I'm occasionally a lier," rather than say, "Look we've changed our mind on the position of tax". . . . . Here is an example of where there's a big line: "We are not going to impose any new taxes". Then they decided - or Tony decided - that they were going to tax some businesses in order to pay for parental leave. Now why couldn't he say, "Kerry O'Brien, we've changed our mind on that" - because, in fact, that change of mind was not something that came in the heat of the moment. . . . . Nobody will do it. Nobody will say- and yet our whole political system is based on the notion of debate and trying to convince one another of the right position. But nobody is willing to say, "You've got a point there and we've changed our mind".

It seems as if, on the one hand, we know that politicians are just ordinary people and we want them not to try and pretend they're something they are not. We want them to be honest and authentic. Yet at the same time, we expect them to be perfect. We want them to speak honestly each time they speak and we want them to settle on a position on the first go. It looks like we're caught between that thing we Australians know so well - that no-one's perfect - and a strange desire for a better man. I think there's good in both and I think it will always be a messy business. Ultimately, I think what we're looking for is something truely Good, but a good that doesn't pretend the stuff-ups and shortcomings aren't there. Maybe I'm drawing a long bow, but I think the impossible expectations we place on our politicians reveal our nation's yearning for Jesus.

1 22 May 2010, 'Programmatic Specificity We Can Believe In'

Sydney photos - this way

Sydney photos - that way

Censorship

In Turkey, people are very religious and spiritual. That's just part of their makeup and their everyday lives. So you can talk with them about anything and religious stuff will come up one way or another. It's not like that in Australia. Here we have a very clearly defined spiritual/secular divide, and spiritual discussion is only permissible in certain contexts. But when it comes to this we Australian Christians should act more like Turkish people and less like Australians. Our faith and spiritually is at the heart of everything we think and do. It pervades even our humble deeds. If we fail to talk about it, it must be because we are actively stopping ourselves from doing so. So let's resolve to be more natural and true to ourselves, and to our God.


H/T Peter

Getting along

Anglo Australians have some okay conflict management skills. We know how to talk things through and we may even be able to do so calmly. But our skills can make us a little too atuned to being wronged and leave us with the expectation that every issue must be sorted out. Chinese Australians, on the other hand, have pretty decent conflict avoidance skills. They can overlook wrongs and bear with other peoples' failings. But they can also bottle stuff up inside until finally they explode in anger. So there's things we can learn from each other.


H/T Paul

The community of church

On mission I learned about church in the innercity and about connecting with strangers. Actually I've since realised another thing - that I already have relationships with various people in my community; it's just that they're not very good relationships. So I don't need to feel overwhelmed at the thought of getting to know new people. These people are already part of my life; it's just that I need to get to know them better.

Another thing we witnessed on mission was community. I went along to a few different church groups - an evening community group in the pastor's house, a lunchtime workers' group in the workplace and a morning Mums' group in the pastor's house again. Each group did different things, but they were all marked by the loyalty and care of their members. Maybe we only noticed this because we were newbies looking on, or maybe there's something special going on at St Peters. Shane the pastor and his wife Ali were certainly eager to be hospitable and made all fifteen of us feel at home. I also noticed that Shane's focus on community came out in the church services - with plenty of communal reading aloud of Bible passages and confessions of faith. It was all good stuff and a privilege to be part of it for a week.

Sydney

Here are two things I love about Sydney:

1. When you indicate, the driver nearest to you will pause for a moment so you can duck in. Every time. This never happens in Hobart. There, you have to indicate for half an hour before you want to change lanes, and even then, the other driver will only let you in if they've had their morning coffee and didn't fight with their wife.


2. When you want to get rid of something and it seems just a little too special to chuck in the bin, you put it on the nature strip. Everyone does this. Someone else will come along and take it. Or it will just sit there. This never happens in Hobart or Melbourne or Canberra. People would mind.

B1 and B2

Here's my two bobs' worth for someone starting a ministry apprenticeship:

1. Sleep in once a week. Even if you don't actually do this, knowing that it would be okay will give you permission to sleep in when you need to.


2. Consider the apprenticeship as you having given yourself over to ministry. You are no longer your own. You've been given enough money to free you up from having to do a regular job, in order that you might dedicate your life to serving the church. This has at least two implications: 1) you should devote yourself to the people of your church and community, and 2) there is no set way to order your life. You are not being paid by the hour. It doesn't matter how many hours you work or when you do the housework or see your friends. You just need to determine what works for you, knowing that the only measure of your faithfulness is to be unashamed before God.

H/T Benny and Mikey

Settling in

Frank the Missionary can't help but be wise. His is the sort of wisdom that confounds the wise. Here's his advice about settling into a new culture:

• Work out the local sense of humour. If you can get understand that, you've understood the culture - and you can be winsome and really start to enjoy the local peoples' company.


• Be vulnerable.


• Do routine fun, escapist things. For some inexplicable reason, the example Frank provided of this was walking down to the swamp with his wife each Sunday.


• In your ministry, spend the majority of your time doing stuff you love. Do this even should you be depressed. It'll look different then - it might just be washing the dishes.

Dig in, enjoy and come back for more

Many of the Masterchef contestants say that they cook to bring people joy. This makes me wonder if cooking is perhaps the most selfless of the arts . . . I think that the other arts do tend to be more serious or self-focussed. So, while you might dance to perform, you also might do it just to revel in the experience, or - for the professional dancer - to communicate. It's only sometimes about bringing pleasure to the audience. With writing this is even more true. Of course you write to give something to your readers, but you also write for yourself and in pursuit of some literary end, which is as like to be sad as happy. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the other arts, yet there is something admirable about the reasons for cooking.

Scrambling

Probably everyone knows about this guy Jordan Belfort, a filthy rich guy who got that way by legally selling stocks in the beginning (making $1 million a month) and later by doing illegal stuff. I read about him in The Australian. (We love The Australian.) Here's one thing he said:

The problem on Wall Street is this. You're not creating anything. There's no
satisfaction. The only barometer you have is money. And money has no meaning. So
what do you do? You try to attach meaning to the money by buying
possessions.1

This sounds like something from Ecclesiastes. It's funny because I'm afraid to say that I think of luxuriant possessions as evidence of having made it, as a display of mighty achievements. But he's saying that possessions are actually an attempt to put a face to meaningless achievements.



1 W Leith, "The Man Who Sold His Soul" in The Weekend Australian Magazine April 17-18 2010, p19.

Forgiving and letting go

Over Easter I cooked for some people at Katoomba Easter Convention. To me this is perhaps the single most iconic Sydney evangelical event, so I enjoyed seeing its mystery unveiled. I had pictured a ginormous, plush convention centre, so there was something oddly pleasing about the fact that it looked like the inside of a big (not ginormous) shearing shed, set amidst bushland. There's something good about humble Christian buildings I think.

As I've said before I'm not a particular fan of conferences, so it was great to be able to cook for the teachers-of-the-kids-of-the-grownups who are. It was also great to sit in on a couple of talks and rejoice that all these people have come to hear really solid, heartfelt Bible talks.

In one of the talks I half-listened to, John Lennox spoke about forgiveness. He said that in the Bible the Greek word has a wider range of meaning than its English translation, "forgive". In Greek, the word can refer to 'letting go' as well as to actually forgiving in a formal sense (acknowledging that the wrong done against you no longer incurs a debt). Lennox said that, while Christians are commanded to forgive in the first sense - not to dwell on wrongs and to let go of them - that it is only if and when the wrongdoer repents that the second sense of forgiveness comes into play.

I feel a bit uncomfortable about this, but then I didn't follow his arguments closely and I haven't had a careful look through the New Testament. Nevertheless I feel like this distinction sets up an expectation that each time a person sins against another person, that they must receive forgiveness from both God and that person. I think this is generally appropriate and should be done (Luke 11:4), but I also think that even if the wrongdoer were to seek forgiveness from God alone, then that would be sufficient (Psalm 51:4). Even if Lennox is right and unless the person repents you don't have to forgive in the second, formal sense, I can see another option. I wonder if, at the very least, you can chose to hand it all over to God, to leave all judgement and forgiveness in his hands because it is able to do it all (1 Peter 2:23).

What do you think?


Postscript: thanks to Laura's input I've sured up my thinking about this. Have a read of the comments to see where I'm at now.

Cheerful chooks

Thanks in large part to Our Pam I always buy Free Range eggs. I see this mundane, apparently abstract consumer choice as an clear opportunity to take moral action. I'm so convinced of this that I'll happily pay extra money and not purchase any eggs if my corner shop doesn't stock Free Range.

This was all good and fine until I realised I was inconsistent in buying Fair Trade chocolate. An egg is an egg, but all chocolate is not equal. Turned out that I cared more about taste than I did about the lives of very poor people. How could I act on behalf of chickens but not on behalf of people?

Since then, I've been more consistent in my purchase of Fair Trade chocolate, coffee and tea . . . But I'm very happy to report that the dichotomy between taste and social justice has just become a false one.

Mundoview

An old friend of mine takes staggeringly beautiful photos.

Don't believe the lies

I get so used to death being a part of this world that I forget its horror and sometimes even half-believe the arguments made in its defence. The following wry exchange was a dose of reality. It's from White Noise, a brilliant, darkly entertaining, wonderfully written satirical novel by Don Delillo. Murray and Jack are speaking, fellow lecturers at the College-on-the-Hill.

"Do you think it's a sense of incompleteness that causes you the deepest regret? There are things you still hope to accomplish. Work to be done, intellectual challenges to be faced."

"The deepest regret is death. The only thing to face is death. This is all I think about. There's only one issue here. I want to live."

. . . .

"This is death. I don't want it to tarry awhile so I can write a monongraph. I want it to go away for seventy or eighty years."

. . . .

"Do you believe the only people who fear death are those who are afraid of life?"

"That's crazy. Completely stupid."

"Right. We all fear death to some extent. Those who claim otherwise are lying to themselves. Shallow people."

"People with their nicknames on their license plates."

"Excellent, Jack. Do you believe life without death is somehow incomplete?"

"How could it be incomplete? Death is what makes it incomplete."

"Doesn't our knowlege of death make life more precious?"

"What good is a preciousness based on fear and anxiety? It's an anxious quivering thing."

"True. The most deeply precious things are those we feel secure about . A wife, a child. Does the specter of death make a child more precious?"

"No."

"No. There is no reason to believe life is more precious because it is fleeting. Here is a statement. A person has to be told he is going to die before he can begin to live life to the fullest. True or false?"

"False. Once your death is established, it becomes impossible to live a satisfying life."

"Would you prefer to know the exact date and time of your death?"

"Absolutely not. It's bad enough to fear the unknown. Faced with the unknown, we can pretend it isn't there. Exact dates would drive many to suicide, if only to beat the system." (p283, 284-85)

On a mission

Last week I went on college mission. Before I say anything of substance, can I just point out how horrific it is that this verb gets used as a noun. Or perhaps that's not the thing that troubles me - perhaps it's that the noun doesn't receive an article. Why do we say "I went on mission" when it should be "I went on a/the mission"?? This is the same sort of ugliness as when people ask "Where do you church?". Ew.

Anyway 'mission' was awesome. My group went to St Peters Anglican, just south of Newtown. I was hoping to learn how an inner city church can connect with the mass of disenchanted people, and to acquire the courage and skills to talk to scary homeless people. Here's some of the things I learned:

• It's tough. People are disinterested or hostile and they don't respond well to mass evangelism/marketing. But they do value relationships, and if over time you can win peoples' trust, well, then you've won their trust and they will listen charitably to your invitations to church or whatever. In each person's life there are plenty of opportunities to engage with the people around - your friends, the parents of your kids' friends, your hairdresser etc. You just have to be a friendly person who takes an interest in these people, and commit to getting to know them, little by little. It's that simple and that tough.
• I'm interested in people. Well I already knew that, but it was good for me to realise that, as long as I set out with the right attitude, I do have the courage to talk to homeless people.
• It's okay to be introverted and to get overwhelmed and drained by interacting with lots of people. It doesn't mean that I should give up on connecting with people - just that I should limit it to, y'know, one local supermarket owner, cafe, hairdresser, pharmacy, neighbour. And if I need time to myself, well then I can shop elsewhere and not interact.