The musings of a blog named G

And for me this is enough for now

2009-10-08T20:04:00.003+13:45

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.", so claimed the preacher in the book of Ecclesiastes. Of all the books of the Bible, Ecclesiastes is my favourite; it fits my cynical worldview. Not for me the name it and claim it theology of the word of faith movement. There's is an easy believism that replaces true faith with a decerebriated Christianity. I've heard, seen and experiences too many "promises" that have not been fulfilled. Promises that seem to be predicated on giving more; it seems that the only people who benefit from such a theology are the recipients of the flock’s misplaced largess.

No, not for me the empty words of faith, and the mantra like repetitions of good reports and claiming the promises.

I believe, but I do not know what I believe. I am a Christian but what does that mean? For some like Geering, and Cupitt it is a non-theistic, non-supernaturalistic faith. Yet such a faith is disingenuous. I much prefer the honest atheism of a Mackie or Dawkins to the lukewarm non-believism of the "sea of faith".

A while back I was in Thailand. I was attending a church conference of my former cult the World wide Church of God. While in Thailand I encountered for the first time an alternative world view, that of Buddhism. I visited Wat Po and saw the reclining Buddha. I learnt a bit about its precepts. The middle may was attractive, but I did not become Buddhist. As a philosophy there was much I admired but the middle way seemed like too much hard work. So I moved on.

After the WCG split I wandered and found myself at a charismatic Anglican church. I found people who accepted me. Yet even there I found myself unable to truly connect. My story was outside the parishioners’ comfortable middle class experience.

Every now and again I visit other places. The energy of Pentecostalism reminds me of what I grew up with. There is a sense of purpose and direction. But it comes at a cost; the suspension of one's critical faculties. I see all the manipulations that I experienced in my old cult at work, so I move on.

I am now 45, well on the way to middle age. By this time I thought that I would have had a few answers to the questions of life. But no. Instead I echo the same question that the preacher asked - "What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun?"

I am a Christian. I believe in the virgin birth, the death and resurrection, the atonement. All of these I believe in. Everything else is uncertain. And for me this is enough for now.

A long time back

2009-05-25T11:26:00.003+12:45

It'd been a long time. It's not that I haven't had things to talk about; I have. But I have not felt that motivated. too many things going through my head. I had just been away down south for a week. I hoped it would clear my head, but I have returned with more thoughts than ever buzzing round in my head.

Still it was nice to get away apart from picking up some mild food poisoning at a dodgy Thai restraurant on the first day, making me feel sick as a dog for a couple of days. I almost didn't make due to a small coming car incident, but the panel beater was able to repair the ding in time. I stopped off for a couple of days in hanmer before heading down to Chritchurch. The central part of Hanmer has become like a mini Rotorua with motels congregating around the theremal pools. Due to the food poisoning I didn't do much though i did soak in the hot pools for an hour.

The weather was variable; going from t-shirt weather on the first day to sleet, hail and snow when I was in Christchurch. I took my mother out for her birthday to a quaint restraurant which played live music. The food was not very adventurous, but very nicely cooked. And the staff were very friendly making us feel at home. My mother enjoyed it.

I spent a day knocking around Picton before heading back to Wellington. Again another close shave with food; the restaurant I had dinner at was absolutely appalling. It should be a crime to cook food so badly (but at least no food poisoning this time). I caught the last Bluebridge ferry over. Picton had been fine, and still with no wind; a nice quiet day to chill out. Sailing through the sounds in the dark is surreal; apart from the odd light on the shore or a passing boat all was totally dark, and disorientating. Yet it was a clear night and due to the lack of town lights the night sky was amazing.

But when we hit the strait, there was a real roll on, and by mid strait the wind had become a howling gail. Everytime the ferry hit a wave the whole ship shook and shuddered. To pass the time I watched "Journey to the Centre of the Earth". It was a remake of an earlier film. The original was much better, but at least it passed the time. We entered Wellington harbour one hour late. Then home to find all was as I left it. The next day I heard that all the ferrys had been cancelled due to the weather.

Another moral conundrum

2009-03-19T21:05:00.004+13:45

Another interesting story I read recently.

The Pope of the Roman Catholic Church on his visit to Africa was reported as arguing against the use of condoms as protection against getting infected by HIV. According to the report Pope Benedict argued that condoms made the problem worse. In this the Pope is reinforcing traditional Catholic teaching on human sexuality, in which the only legitimate place for sex is within the confines of monogamous heterosexual marriage and all forms of birth control are sin.

Africa has one of the highest rates of infections of the virus in the world and in recent years health workers have advocated "safe-sex" via the use of condoms to reduce the infection rate. The response of the advocates of "safe-sex" to the Pope's pronouncements has been one of horror, arguing that the Pope has shown an ignorance of the cultural reality that has lead to the high rates of infection. By condemning the use of condoms, the Pope’s critics argue that he has set back the anti-AIDs programme by years.

Evangelicals do not necessarily see the use of birth control as sinful. But they agree with the Catholic Church’s teaching that the only place for sex is within the confines of heterosexual marriage. Thus many conservative evangelical groups have also been highly critical of the safe-sex message seeing it as advocating promiscuity leading to higher rates of STIs.

Condoms work by placing a barrier in the way of transmission of the virus between sexual partners. But they are not 100% effective. It is accepted that there is a failure rate even if used correctly. Annual average failure rates resulting in pregnancy have been estimated as between 10% - 36%. And when there is a failure there will be a transfer of body fluids that carry the risk of transmitting the HIV virus.

Thus the only 100% effective way to prevent sexual transmission is abstinence. But abstinence would require a major shift in sexual behaviour. And changing sexual behaviour within any group is very difficult. Even within Evangelical teenagers who have taken the purity pledge of no sex before marriage a large number lose their virginity before marriage. It has been estimated that such pledges have only a 5-10% success rate. The pressures of living in a culture that places a low priority on chastity overwhelms the good intentions expressed when the teens made the pledge. And each sexual experience carries the risk of infection with an STI such as HIV.

What then for Africa and its millions of AIDs sufferers? Should one take the morally pure road, and teach an abstinence only message which fails to take into account the cultural realities. Or should one accept the culture as it is and see condoms as a harm minimisation measure (a sexual equivalent of a clean needle exchange programme amongst intravenous drug users) despite its high failure rate?

A moral condundrum

2009-03-11T18:03:00.005+13:45

The other day I read a newspaper report of the tragic case of a 9 year old Brazilian girl who was raped by her step-father which resulted in the girl getting pregnant with twins. Two medical doctors looking after the girl decided that it would be better for the physical and mental health of the girl that she had an abortion. Both of the doctors and the family of the girl were catholic, and the Catholic Church has a strict teaching against abortion and on learning of what happened, Archibishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho excommunicated both of the doctors as well as the family of the girl. The family member whose selfish and repugnant act had resulted in the girl getting pregnant, as well as no doubt causing severe psychological and emotional trauma was not excommunicated. According to the Cardinal quoted in the report the reason for excommunicating the doctors and the family members while not excommunicating the girl’s abuser was that the killing of the unborn twins was a much greater sin than the rape of the girl.

The case raises a number of thorny moral dilemmas for conservative Christians, most notably is whether an abortion unacceptable in all cases. Is the life of the unborn so sacred that the health and well being of an innocent child like the nine year old in this case must take second place? For though she was physically is capable of conceiving, is she emotionally able to cope with an unplanned pregnancy at so young an age on top of the trauma she suffered from the rape. And is she physically able to carry the twins to full term without putting her own health or even life at risk.

It is my view that the emotional and physical health of the girl takes precedence. Therefore I would support the actions of the Doctors and the family of the girl against the teachings of the church.

The second dilemma is how to deal with the perpetrator of the abuse. At the heart of Christianity is the idea of unmerited forgiveness. All have sinned and come short of God's standard but through the atonement all can be forgiven. But how is possible to reconcile forgiveness with an act that involved a violation of trust at its most basic level. As adults we need to protect our children. At the same time as Christians we are called to forgive all offenses, no matter how serious and repugnant.

The question I have is is it really possible to forgive in a case such as this. I know that I would find forgiveness in this situation difficult, if not impossible.

I'm not religous

2009-02-27T12:21:00.003+13:45

I find it strange that evangelicals deny that they are religious. For evangelicals are very religious. But many play the game of denial equating religion with "human created rituals" as though many of the rituals they follow somehow fell from heaven complete and pure in form.

The hypocrisy of this position was again brought home to me last night when I caught up with a work mate and one of his friends at the Southern Cross Bar. Over a couple of wines the conversation ranged far and wide and eventually came to religion. At this point my friend mentioned that I was religious (my friend's an agnostic and on previous nights we have discussed the topic of god over a couple of wines). By not trying to deny that I was religious I was able to talk about God and find out what each of my colleagues thought. If I had denied that I was religious then I would have rightly been seen as a hypocrite and the chance for an open and honest discussion would have been lost.

I also wonder what certain religion denying evangelicals would have thought of having a couple of wines or beers in a pub with unbelievers. Maybe they would be too comfortable in their heaven sent and pure "non-religious" rituals to step in the door of a pub with the unbelievers and let a drop of alcohol pass their lips.

Wired

2009-02-12T00:51:00.003+13:45

I'm feeling a bit wired at the moment. This morning started with a funeral of the brother of a friend of mine who died in the last few days. As a rule I hate funerals, and this one was no different. It was also one of the funerals that seemed to drag on for ever, and due to work I left before the end.

I hadn't had much to do with him in recent years, but I did go to a youth camp with him many years ago and ended up rooming with him. I remember he could tell tall stories and make them so believable you'd think they were true. So it was no surprise he got into sales and ended up very successful owning and operating one of the biggest car sales yards in Wellington. He had it all; a successful business, a beautiful partner, great kids. And just as he was reaping the rewards of all his hard work he was gone at just 40 years of age.

Then I was off to work which was uneventful until just near the end. Then things got interesting which often happens in my line of work. Things can be so quiet, then chaos. So I ended up having to sort out an incident just when I hoped to easing down to the end of shift. And when you have a shift like that it always takes a while to unwind and still the mind, hence why I am still up past the midnight hour.

But tomorrow (or should i say today) is another day :)

Time

2009-02-09T18:30:00.007+13:45

The other night Huggies was filling out a form in which she had to fill in which age group she belonged to. Filling it in she exclaimed how old she felt, this coming from someone who was born in the year that I sat UE (the precursor to NCEA), to which I exclaimed "if that makes you old what does that make me".

Age it seems catches up with us all. My attempts to not grow up have failed dismally, as one of the clients I work with points out when he has me on about all the greys hairs that are coming though. And he has a point. I could try anti-greying treatments but that would only mask what is going on underneath. Time as they say stops for no man.

Do I have the same dreams as when I was in my twenties. Yes and no. Some dreams I've achieved, others have faded away into oblivion. Others are still there, unfulfilled like some sore that never heals. Then there are new ones. What will become of these? Will they be fulfilled? Will they die? Will they become another sore, another source of pain and frustration?

They are all questions that only time and God can reveal. In one sense it would be easier not to dream, much less painful, less frustrating. But to not dream is to not live.

3G

2009-02-07T18:04:00.006+13:45

My diary is full
Racing from appointment to appointment
Blackberry in hand chiming
the miracles of 3G interconnectedness
I check on the latest machinations of Shortland Street
In between slurps of fair trade flat white
Roasted fresh each day

I sup deeply from the trough of emptiness
Though full I am never satiated

I amp up
Till my body heaves in time to the sensations that
Barrage me from every side

Blandly I flick my remote
Without thought. I am an automaton.
Images blurr, merging into white noise
Turning the volume to maximum
I drown out the empty silences
That masquerade as meaningful conversation

I am haunted by a ghost sent to taunt me
A gentle mumur, a question
Spoken in silence

Who will sit down to eat with the despised?

Will the real comedian stand up

2009-02-03T21:02:00.002+13:45

Comedy is a strange thing, strange as in why laugh at all. Look at the recent success of for example “The Flight of the Concords”. Why are they so popular? What is it about "Its Business Time" that makes me make this strange and bizarre sound, and why is it that that "Business Time" or any number of skits, gags etc have a similar effect on me and others?

I have done the odd piece of comedy in the past. When I was young I use to do some skits with my brothers. I've also done a couple of pieces of stand-up comedy, one of which was at a singles camp a few years back, and another at a friends wedding. The really strange thing I found was that the feedback is so immediate and that I rode the response and energy of the audience. It was also really scary for what if I died on stage and no one found me funny. Every so often I think about having another go, but I then get busy or find another excuse for the fear of dying on stage is always there. And I've seen some stand-ups die badly.

But why should it be that some die, and others fly? What is it that makes something funny? Is it that comedy captures how ridiculous and painful life can be? Some of the best and funniest people I've met have had the saddest lives. The pain of their lives provides a cynical edge to their stories which we, the audience can relate to, for all of us have been through pain, loss, frustration, and embarrassment. And maybe comedy is a way of letting go of that pain, if only for a while.

A Parachute roadtrip

2009-01-29T16:33:00.004+13:45

I've just returned from a parachute road trip. It’s been about three years since my last parachute road trip and there was a new selection of bands and artists to see. A reported 25,000 made the pilgrimage to Mystery Creek, though it seemed slightly less than previous years.

The first act I caught on the Friday night was House of Shem, a reggae/dub group, before drifting over to see alt country singer songwriter Lauren Thomson. I then caught the tail end of funk/jazz group Late Eighties Mercedes before catching all of punk/hardcore group Mums Dollar. So the eclectic mix that is parachute had not changed.

The mainline speaker was Brian Houston returning after ten years. Now Brian is an energetic and entertaining speaker. He talked a bit about some off the stress and anxiety he has experienced recently, and how one Sunday morning while still processing some bad news about his father asked his wife Bobby whether she wanted to go to church or Fiji. Ah if only I could do that - feeling stressed from work deciding to play hookie and head off to Fiji for a few days. But then I don't run a 20,000 member church with a staff of 400 including senior pastors to whom I can delegate the running of the church (Am I jealous, or cynical - I think maybe a bit of both).

My favourite NZ new band was House of Shem followed closely by Sons of Zion (both were reggae/dub bands). Of the overseas bands my favourite was the David Crowder band lead by the bespeckled, and goatied David Crowder who played Texan country/rock/gospel. Their set was one big Ho down party that got the moshpit jumping. Casting Crowns were the mainline worship act, but I would have prefered the David Crowder band - they were a lot more fun.

And the near miss of the weekend; losing my glasses in the moshpit. It was while the game Pirates of the Caribbean was being played. This game required that two rubber dinghes with an occupant in each be transported across the moshpit to a golfing buggy where a second occupant was picked up. The dinghy was then returned to the stage, hopefully with the occupants still inside. The first one back to the stage won (just think of crowd surfing with a rubber dinghy and you'll get the picture). One of the dinghys headed over my part of the moshpit and while supporting the dinghy the glasses went flying to who knows where. I expected that if I found them at all they would be mashed into near nonexistence. However they turned up a day later in lost and found, a bit bent, and dusty but wearable.

On my way back I stopped off in Tauranga for the night for a break. Then continued on stopping off in rotorua for a soak in the hot pools. Alas all good things come to an end so its back to work tomorrow (sigh!)

Bob the Builder

2009-01-16T22:29:00.003+13:45

Over the last few days I've been doing my "Bob the Builder" impersonation repairing holes in the kitchen and ceiling. The source of the above repair work was a leaking pipe. Even though I caught the leak early and water damage was minimal some holes needed to be cut in the ceiling and walls to get to and repair the leak.

Given that I am not a handyman I was initially thinking about getting someone in to repair the damage. But after a bit of hunting round on the net to see what needed to be done it looked easier than I thought it was going to be.

So off I trundled to Trash Palace to get some gib offcuts and to the local hardware store for some plaster and paint and hey presto I was converted into "Bob the Builder". Well not quite. The plastering in particular was not as easy as it looked in the nice photos and diagrams on the DIY sites. But after a bit of cutting, fitting, sanding, and painting the holes are fixed and it’s onto the next project.

Same ol lang syne

2009-01-02T19:39:00.004+13:45

Another year has dawned across the globe. As the the bells chimed millions wished each other a happy new year. Hope was in the air and resolutions were made. This year will be better than the last. Or will it?

For despite the good will and good intentions the new year continues on where the old year finished. The perpeutual blood feud that is the the Middle East rumbles on with hundreds more dead in the latest conflagation. Of course both Hamas and Israel are working overtime to spin their side of the story claiming that they are the innocent victim of the others aggression.

And while each side claims the moral high ground rockets rain down on Israeli townships launched from within Gaza, and bombs rain down on Gaza launched from within Israel.

Sterile debates rage about proportionate response and using civilians as human shields. And while this goes on the innocent as well as the guilty will sufferand die.

Eventually a cease fire will be called. The stalemate will continue and the bloodshed will cease for a moment. But the enmities and mistrust will continue until the next outburst of violence.

The protagonists are like members of a bizarre death cult. So trapped are they within the rituals of the cult, they will continue their mutual dance of death.

And all the while I wonder what the God of Abraham thinks?

Xmas Ambivalence

2008-12-26T11:31:00.002+13:45

Xmas is past and I must admit to being ambivilent about it all. On one hand I see the significance of the day to my faith for it is the day Christians set aside to celebrate the Christ child coming into the world. Yet there is all the puffery that goes with it, the commercialisation, and all these the drunken people getting tanked up in the name of the "Xmas Spirit".

Xams is suppose to be a time for family. Maybe that is why I feel so ambivalent for I have have no family of my own so the family side of Xmas is meaningless to me.

So during this time I feel like a casual observer to some Madi Gras like parade. I see all these people getting involved, dancing, singing and enjoying the parade. They all seem to be enjoying themselves, yet I feel oddly seperated from what is going on around me.

Fortunately Xmas comes only once a year. And now the party is over hopefully I won't feel so ambivalent and disconnected.

President-elect Obama

2008-11-06T21:26:00.004+13:45

In my short life I have witnessed two things that I thought were impossible. The first was when the Berlin wall came down signalling the end of the cold war. In the eurphoria that followed there was talk of a new world order, and influential US intellectual Francis Fukuyama declared the end of history. Decades later we can see that much of the euphoria was based on a false hope. Russia has regressed back to a virtual dictatorship, Islamic terrorist flew planes into the twin towers, and the US launched an illfated venture into Iraq. Yet despite these and many other intractable problems millions are now free, and the risk of nuclear war has receded (though it is still with us).

The second was last night. I watched something I thought I would never see, an African American giving his first speech as president-elect of the USA, a little over 40 years after Martin Luther King gave his famous mountain top speech. In electing Barack Obama, the American people have shown that they can rise above the racism and prejudice of the past. As with the fall of the wall there is euphoria and expectation of a new and better world. Yet as I write this I know that Barack Obama faces many difficult, even intractable problems. Yet despite these problems and the inevitability of disappointment, the world is a better place for what happened last night.

My prayers are with the president-elect and the American people. May God bless America!

Confusion

2008-11-05T11:13:00.003+13:45

I was going to get around to writing something deep and meaningful about the forthcoming elections in both the US and NZ, but that can wait until after the results have come in.

Instead I will ramble about something else that is on my mind for a while now. Having written this, I am struck by the weirdness of the English language, for how can I have "something on my mind" if the mind is a phenomenon that does not exist in the world of real objects. I can for example sit on a chair, or place a book on a table, for tables and chairs are real world objects that exist in time and space. But the mind is not a real world object, so how can I have "something on it". But I digress.

Prayer for Christians is suppose to be a part of their normal everyday lives. It is often presented as a conversation with God, an important part of which is presenting petitions and requests to God that he does something, e.g. heal John of Cancer, or provides something like a good job. It is an assumption of Christianity that not only will God hear these requests, but if they are within his will He will grant them.

As a Christian it has been part of my life for the majority of my existence. But herein lays the problem. For over those decades I have made countless requests of which none have come to pass. In fact this has been the norm. Indeed there have been times I've prayed for something, and times I haven't prayed for something. And when I compare the two I find no difference in the outcomes. Maybe this would make sense if the prayers were along the lines of let me win lotto or make me a millionaire. But they weren't, in fact most of them were help with normal life issues and problems.

So I find myself with an irreconcilable conflict between my theology that says there is a God who answers prayers and my experience of a God who doesn't. And much of what I've read has been unhelpful; along the lines of you need to repent more of unconfessed sin or wait for God's timing (which for those friends and family who have died despite the prayers for their healing seems a strange thing to say), or suspend my mind and just name it and claim it (based on the notion that we live by faith not by sight).

Maybe what I have asked for is not part of God's will or plan. But what then is God's plan? While I can see it at the cosmic level - the salvation of the world and the restoration of his Kingdom etc, I have been unable to determine what it is at an individual level. Indeed if you were to ask me what is "God's plan for my life?" I'd stare blankly at you and probable mumble something along the lines of "I dunno".

So what is my conclusion to this ramble? At the moment I don't have one. I m just confused.

Market Failure and Regime Change

2008-10-12T12:52:00.004+13:45

A long time ago I was sitting in an Economic history lecture. Boring you might think. Sometimes yes. But this one held me spellbound. And the reason? The Tulip Mania that consumed Holland in the 1630s. Tulips had been in Holland since 1562. Over the intervening years demand for tulip bulbs increase to the point where demand outstrips supply. In 1632 a manic speculative bubble took hold which would last four years. Property and estates were mortgaged in search of the rare an elusive perfect bulb which were bought and sold at ever higher prices. Unfortunately like all speculative bubbles, prices became unsustainable and the market crashed leaving the owners with nothing to their name except the formally priceless bulb.

Such manias seem to be endemic to capitalism. Markets are driven by an overly inflated sense of confidence. While the players in the market share the same delusion that the price for the traded item will continue to increase, their expectations will be fulfilled, but only to a point. Eventually an event or series of events will trigger a panic. The same mob psychology that pushed up the price will drive it down as players seek to exit the market. Initially the motive will be still to maximise profit, but as the market plunges ever lower it will turn into minimising loses. And as the market spirals out of control ever lower all semblance of rationality will disintegrate into a mad rush for the exit.

When the blood letting is finally over, “experts” will undertake dry, objective analyses to identify the causes and provide recommendations so as to avoid future repetitions of such market failures. But history has shown that these recommendations will fail. For greed is intrinsic to capitalism. And greed will find new ways to make money. But greed is a deceptive mistress. She flatters to deceive.

Karl Marx argued that capitalism has within it the seeds of its own destruction. He believed that the ultimate crisis of capitalism will bring about the revolution he yearned for as the oppressed rose up and gained control of the means of production. As a critic of the failures of capitalism Marx was without peer. As a secular prophet of social change he was an abysmal failure. Where revolution arose it tended to be in the more backward of economies. Marx’s theory of social change and revolution was also wedded to the smokestack economies of industrial Europe. We now live in information based economies which operate according to more complicated laws. Economies are increasingly interconnected. The flow of money and information is now many times that of the flow of real goods and services. In this new world the economics of knowledge has become decoupled from the economics of production. Such decoupling carries with it a systemic risk of market over-inflation and spectacular crashes

We saw the first indication of this in the stock market crash of 1987 and the tech bubble of the late 90s. The rise and fall of Enron gave us an insight into what happens at the corporate level when knowledge and production become decoupled. The sub-prime mortgage fiasco and the global meltdown that it triggered has revealed what can happen when the decoupling occurs at the level of an economy.

What we are seeing at the moment is but the first wave in a change that will alter the face of the globe more dramatically than flying a couple of planes into the Twin Towers ever achieved. In such turbulent times there will be winners and losers. Just as the economic forces of the industrial revolution lead to the demise of the ancient regimes of Europe, so those who previously held the reigns of power will be dethroned. We have seen it with that pillar of Wall Street, the Lehman Brothers. But the changes will go far beyond the loss of a few very large and powerful investment banks. It will ripple through nation states changing the geopolitical territory forever. Nor will the transformation be complete in few months, but will probably take decades to work through.

Social and economic crises, such as that caused by a market collapse results in transformational change. The Tulip Mania heralded the demise of Antwerp and Holland, and the rise of England to superpower status. The twin calamities of WWI and WWII saw the end of England’s hegemony and the rise of the USA. Will the current crisis see the unravelling of the American empire. Will it precipitate the rise to world dominance an Asian superpower in the form of a militant and confident China? Time will tell.

Stress

2008-10-09T13:22:00.002+13:45

If you ask me I'll tell you that I hate stress. But then I do something like I'm doing at the moment.

Which is?

Well I've arranging scaffolding so that I can finish painting the outside of my house, as well as doing the rounds of the paint store to decide the colour. A bit of work, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Then while finishing off some painting on the inside of the house I decided that I needed a new kitchen and the vinyl needed to be replaced. So I've been doing the rounds of the kitchen and flooring stores to see what I can do. A bit more stress maybe but still manageable.

But on top of this I've been thinking about what I'll be doing next year. So I've been surfing the net to look at options. As a result I'm thinking about renting my place and heading over to oz for a year. I got the choice down to either Sydney or Melbourne, couldn't decide so I flipped a coin and it came up Sydney. Choosing is the easy part now I have to organise, around everything else I'm doing. And I've decided that if I am going to go I'd like head off no later than the end of February or early March. But before I can do that I need to finish everything else I doing

Crazy yes you're right. I know I should drop one of the projects, like the oz adventure. But that's not me. I procrastinate for ages, then decide what I want to do and do them all at once.

Hence I must love stress!

Black-dog

2008-10-01T22:15:00.002+13:45

. Thousands would cram together to hear him wherever he preached. He was one of the spiritual giants of his age. He was Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the Prince of Preachers.

While I have been aware of Spurgeon’s reputation for preaching for years, only recently have I learnt another aspect of his character. Throughout his life he suffered from the most painful and deep periods of melancholy and depression.

Today many in the evangelical community would see his depression as evidence of spiritual frailty making him unfit for the pulpit. Some may even view his melancholia as evidence that he was not even saved. Yet the thousands whom he impacted for the kingdom bear witness to the spirit that was in him, a spirit that revealed its power in human weakness.

I find the story of Spurgeon’s human struggle with depression encouraging, for in my life and in my journey I have encountered my own black dog; periods of deep melancholia caused by experiences beyond my control. As I found through bitter experience life can be hard, it can disappoint, it can stretch you to breaking point.

In the midst of my darkest period, during my 20s and early 30s there were feelings of total helplessness and despair. I felt crushed, hopeless, and and totally alone. I did not believe that anyone could or would understand. And yet during this period God was most real. When I could no longer hope He became my hope.

Fortunately this period of my life is over. With the assistance of a good counsellor, much prayer and family and friends I was able to find a way through.

Even so I still have days when some of the old feelings return. But I know that these feelings are temporary, that my spirit will lift and the sun will shine again. I take these days as signs that I need to take time for me. That I am trying too hard, taking too much upon myself, that I need to let go. But letting go is hard for I want to keep up appearances. But when I do let go I find God waiting to lift me up again.

So thankyou Charles for showing the way, that there is hope even for someone as broken as me

White-out

2008-09-25T17:51:00.005+12:45

This last week I took some more time off work. For the weekend I disappeared up to Otaki Forks for "Man-camp". It was nice to head away and catch up with some ofthe guys from church. Some interesting things were discussed but the campfire was almost a non event. At the start the fire produced more smoke than flame. However after much blowing and angst amongst the would be arsonists it finally got going.

Then after the camp I headed up to Ruapehu for a couple of days skiing. This was my third day after almost 20 years. With each day I am getting slightly better. I still fall every so often when I try to push myself that extra bit further but it is all part of learning. The first day was at Whakapapa and it was an absolute stunner. It was -shirt weather though the snow was icy so my first run was a cautious affair. As the day wore on the snow softened but became rutty in the more popular trails. After a days skiing I found a nice pub for a quiet beer with the snowclad peaks of Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe as my back backdrop.

The next day I headed up to Turoa. The day looked good until I started climbing up the mountain. About 2km from the top of the access road the cloud and drizzel descended. Turoa was covered in cloud with around 50m visibility resulting in near whiteout conditions. This was the first time I had skied in such conditions so I decided to keep to the lower mountain trails which I knew. Even so there were times I didn't know if I was going up or down or sideways. It was weirdly disorientating. I did not fall over any steep bluffs, though I did go slightly off trail once and started skiing up hill when I extected to be going down.

On return I finished off some painting. My front door and back door now have fresh coats of paint which means I don't recognice them and therefore think I am entering someone else's place.

They walk among us

2008-09-09T10:53:00.004+12:45

From the strange but true file emailed to me by a mate. And yes its all true. Scary eh!!

Idiotic 'Millionaire' Contestant Makes Worst Use Of Lifelines Ever

Kathy Evans, the single dumbest contestant to ever get on "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?"

NEW YORK - Idaho resident Kathy Evans brought humiliation to her friends and family Tuesday when she set a new standard for stupidity with her appearance on the popular TV show, "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire."

It seems that Evans, a 32-year-old wife and mother of two, got stuck on the first question, and proceeded to make what fans of the show are dubbing "the absolute worst use of lifelines ever."

After being introduced to the show's host Meredith Vieira, Evans assured her that she was ready to play, whereupon she was posed with an extremely easy $100 question. The question was:

"Which of the following is the largest?"
A) A Peanut
B) An Elephant
C) The Moon
D) Hey, who you calling large?

Immediately Mrs. Evans was struck with an all consuming panic as she realized that this was a question to which she did not readily know the answer.

"Hmm, oh boy, that's a toughie," said Evans, as Vieira did her level best to hide her disbelief and disgust. "I mean, I'm sure I've heard of some of these things before, but I have no idea how large they would be."

Evans made the decision to use the first of her three lifelines, the 50/50. Answers A and D were removed, leaving her to decide which was bigger, an elephant or the moon. However, faced with an incredibly easy question, Evans still remained unsure.

"Oh! It removed the two I was leaning towards!" exclaimed Evans. "Darn. I think I better phone a friend."

Using the second of her two lifelines on the first question, Mrs. Evans asked to be connected with her friend Betsy, who is an office assistant.

"Hi Betsy! How are you? This is Kathy! I'm on TV!" said Evans, wasting the first seven seconds of her call. "Ok, I got an important question. Which of the following is the largest? B, an elephant, or C, the moon. 15 seconds hun."

Betsy quickly replied that the answer was C, the moon. Evans proceeded to argue with her friend for the remaining ten seconds.

"Come on Betsy, are you sure?" said Evans. "How sure are you? Puh, that can't be it."

To everyone's astonishment, the moronic Evans declined to take her friend's advice and pick 'The Moon.'

"I just don't know if I can trust Betsy. She's not all that bright. So I think I'd like to ask the audience," said Evans.

Asked to vote on the correct answer, the audience returned 98% in favor of answer C, 'The Moon.' Having used up all her lifelines, Evans then made the dumbest choice of her life.

"Wow, seems like everybody is against what I'm thinking," said the too-stupid-to-live Evans. "But you know, sometimes you just got to go with your gut. So, let's see. For which is larger, an elephant or the moon, I'm going to have to go with B, an elephant. Final answer."
Evans sat before the dumbfounded audience, the only one waiting with bated breath, and was told that she was wrong, and that the answer was in fact, C, 'The Moon.'

This one is actually better!!!

And there is more!!!

*Some guy bought a new fridge for his house. To get rid of his old fridge,
he put it in his front yard and hung a sign on it saying: "Free to good
home. You want it, you take it." For three days the fridge sat there without
even one person looking twice at it. He eventually decided that people were
too un-trusting of this deal. It looked to good to be true, so he changed
the sign to read: "Fridge for sale $50." The next day someone stole it.*

*Caution... They Walk Among Us!*

*One day I was walking down the beach with some friends when someone
shouted...."Look at that dead bird!" Someone looked up at the sky and
said..."where???"*

**They Walk among us!!*

***
While looking at a house, my brother asked the estate agent which direction
was north because, he explained, he didn't want the sun waking him up every
morning. She asked, "Does the sun rise in the north?" When my brother
explained that the sun rises in the east, and has for sometime, she shook
her head and said, "Oh, I don't keep up with that stuff." *

**They Walk Among Us!!*

****
My colleague and I were eating our lunch in our cafeteria, when we overheard
one of the administrative assistants talking about the sunburn she got on
her weekend drive to the beach. She drove down in a convertible, but "didn't
think she'd get sunburned because the car was moving".*

**They Walk Among Us!!!!*

***
I told the girl at the steakhouse register that I wanted the half kilogram
sirloin. She informed me they only had an 500g sirloin. Not wanting to
make a scene, I told her I would take the 500g steak instead of the
half-kgr.*

**They walk among us! *

****
My sister has a lifesaving tool in her car it's designed to cut through a
seat belt if she gets trapped She keeps it in the boot...*

**They Walk Among Us!!!!!*

***
My friends and I were on a Lager run and noticed that the cases were
discounted 10%. Since it was a big party, we bought 2 cases. The cashier
multiplied 2 times 10% and gave us a 20% discount.... *

**They Walk Among Us!!!!!!*

***
I was hanging out with a friend when we saw a woman with a nose ring
attached to an earring by a chain. My friend said, "Wouldn't the chain rip
out every time she turned her head?" I had to explain that a person's nose
and ear remain the same distance apart no matter which way the head is
turned...*

**They Walk Among Us!!!!!!! *

***
I couldn't find my luggage at the airport baggage area. So I went to the
lost luggage office and told the woman there that my bags never showed up.
She smiled and told me not to worry because she was a trained professional
and I was in good hands. "Now," she asked me, "Has your plane arrived
yet?"...*

**They Walk Among Us!!!!!!!!*

***
While working at a pizza parlour I observed a man ordering a small pizza to
go. He appeared to be alone and the cook asked him if he would like it cut
into 4 pieces or 6. He thought about it for some time before responding.
"Just cut it into 4 pieces; I don't think I'm hungry enough to eat 6
pieces.*

**Yep, They Walk Among Us, too.!!!!!!!!*

*Sadly, not only do they walk among us, they also reproduce!!!!*

Maybe they should all try out for the Darwin Awards! With such superior genes I am sure they will find a way to win.

Birthdays

2008-09-08T10:24:00.001+12:45

I’ve just had a birthday. I’d hoped to keep it quiet but the truth got out and I had all these people coming up wishing me a happy birthday. Now getting one year older doesn’t worry me, but I don’t find birthdays a cause for celebration. In fact I’d rather they’d disappear and never be mentioned. I have my reasons; remembering my birthday brings back too many things I’d rather forget.

The church I grew up in didn’t celebrate birthdays. In the contorted reasoning of its founder birthdays were always associated with the pagans, and to celebrate your birthday was to become too involved with “the world”. "Come out and be you separate" was the mantra, and while I moved on in most things there are still some tapes that, given the right trigger, keep on playing so it is better for me to avoid the trigger.

Also as a twin my birthday is not only my birthday. And as a lone twin my birthday reminds me of my loss. It is one of the pains I bear, hidden from view - a pain which even my friends do not understand. And why should they understand for they have never been through this experience.

So I had all these well meaning friends coming up to wishing me a happy birthday. I smiled, nodded and said thankyou. I have learnt over the years it is better to fake it while secretly wishing to be somewhere else. But it is over for another year, thankfully.

I'm back

2008-08-07T10:02:00.003+12:45

After about two weeks away I'm now back home. It was good to catch up with family in Auckland. Auckland is still mad and still the home of the leaky home (passed by a few in my travels). I managed to see Oliver for the first time, and decided that Scott must have found him in the cabbage patch, for he is too cute to be Scott's. On the night of the first storm struck I drove over the bridge to see friends who live on the North Shore. The Harbour Bridge swayed in the wind which made the journey across interesting. The fire service was out in force due to flooding and uprooted trees but I had no problems finding my way there and back safely.

For a day trip I went down to Coromandal. There is a private small gauge railway which goes up the side of the hill. At the top it looks over the harbour and you can see Rangitoto Island if you strain real hard. It was made by a local potter who bought the land and wanted to build a railway for something to do. Five times he said that he would go no further and five times he continued on. Now 40,000 people per year travel the line to the top of the hill.

On the way back I stopped off to do some skiing on Ruapehu. It had been more than 15 years, but I found I could still do the basics. I had planned to take some more lessons on my second day but the second storm struck so I went to the Wiaouru Military museum instead.

Returning to Wellington the next day I saw the damage the storm had wrought. Trees, signs, roofs all knocked over; signs of flooding and storm damage everywhere. But Wellington was relatively unscathed. And my place was all dry and in one piece. Now back to work. Sigh . . .

I'm going on a winter holiday

2008-07-21T09:59:00.002+12:45

I'm just about to head away up north on a winter holiday. I've been feeling a tad grumpy lately so the break should be good. I'll be able to catch up on family and friends, and of course see little oliver for the first time. On the way back I plan to do some sking - the first for about 15 or so year so I may be a tad rusty. Still it will be great to get up into the mountains. I plan to go to Turoa. Last time I looked it had more 1.7m base. I hope the weather is good, but you never go on a winter hol' for the weather eh :)

And his name is Oliver

2008-07-07T18:13:00.002+12:45

His name is Oliver!

Oliver and Grandma

Oliver and Granddad

Oliver and dad

I'm a great uncle!

2008-07-03T17:45:00.004+12:45

Born 1 July, 2008 at 8pm. A Boy. 4.36kg (9lb 5oz). Name to be announced. To Scott (Nephew of Grahame) and Venessa. All are well. Details to follow.

Prince Caspian

2008-07-02T16:02:00.003+12:45

I've just been to see Prince Caspian, the second instalment of the Narnia films. It was a strange experience watching a film in the middle of the day with just six other people in the cinema, but I digress, as I do from time to time, drifting through the highways and byways of blogland to wherever the latest meandering takes me.

Anyway back to Prince Caspian and my thoughts on it. The film had a lot more action and fighting scenes. Even so it still was probably half an hour too long. The special effects have improved, and the sets are better. Also the acting from the lead characters has improved. Peter, though still needs a good kick at times (duly supplied by his sister of course).

With the "Ice Queen" on ice we have a new villain whom I found to be underwhelming. Not once did I feel the urge to hiss and boo whenever he turned up. In fact I felt more like yawning. Come on back "Ice queen", all is forgiven.

Overall it lacked the magic of the first one (also it lacked the fun of trying to guess where in NZ a particular scene was filmed). But it still was an entertaining way to spend a cold and wet afternoon.

6/10 on Grahame's filmometer

Radical centralism

2008-06-03T19:20:00.004+12:45

Being election year I've decided after much discussion to start my own political movement. I'm going to call it radical centralism. The aim of radical centralism is to be totally even-handed; to see both sides to every argument and to agree with each. It is to be absolutely non-committal on everything.

Radical centralism will minimise its carbon footprint by minimising its activity. Radical centralism has chosen as its mascot the sloth, that most non-committal of animals, that most energy efficient, the very same animal that minimises its carbon footprint by doing nothing.

Since the aim of radical centralism is to be non-committal on everything the question arises as to how can it be a movement if it is not moving anywhere. But that is the point of radical centralism; it is a non-moving movement.

Memorable film scenes

2008-05-28T12:53:00.007+12:45

I've just come up with my list of my top ten film scenes. There is no paticular pattern and the scenes are in no particulalr order. What are your favourites?

1. Out of Africa: A solitary steam train is set against the vastness of the African veldt. The steam train was the symbol of western technological excellence, yet against the vastness of the veldt and the harshness of the African light the train becomes insignificant.

2. Blues Brothers: Jake and Elwood Blues are on a mission from God and the trumpet player they need is a working in a high class restaurant. So they head along for a bit of not so fine dining. Classic line – “how much for your women?”

3. Blues Brothers: Why park normally when you can do a perfect 180 degree handbrake parking manoeuvre between two parked cars.

4. Shadowlands: Jack and Joyce are taking a picturesque car ride and walk through the country side. While sheltering from the rain Joyce reminds Jack that she is going to die. Classic line – “The pain then is part of the happiness now”

5. Singing in the Rain: The classic song and dance scene from the classic movie. Gene Kelly gets soaked doing what he does best.

6. Commando: Arnie returns to his partner after dropping one of the baddies over a cliff. His partner asks where the said baddie is, to which Arnie replies “I had to let him go”

7. Star Wars: The opening scene where the rebels wait for the doors to open. With a flash the doors open and storm troopers and rebels fire back and forth. Into the madness and carnage walks Darth Vader, resplendent in black with his husky deep breathing telling to everyone in the universe “I am your worst nightmare come true”.

8. When Harry Met Sally. Meg Ryan “faking it” in a restaurant while Billy Crystal looks on in bemused confusion. Not very CC (Christian Correct) but it is a classic piece of comic brilliance.

9. Damnation Alley: The nuclear nightmare has become a reality and mutant cockroaches scuttle around seeking those whom they might devour to which Keegan kindly obliges by getting himself eaten. I’ve had a phobia about cockroaches since high school. In the biology lab they had this glass box where all these cockroaches bred and crawled over each other. So seeing these mutant cockroaches made want scream and runaway. Maybe I should sue my school?

10. Goodbye Pork Pie: The yellow mini weaves in and out along one of the platforms at Wellington Train Station. A classic piece of anarchic kiwiana directed by Geoff Murphy.

Just

2008-05-25T17:01:00.001+12:45

Is it possible? That was the question underlying the film "When Harry Met Sally". Harry said it was not possible, for sex always got in the way. Sally believed it was possible.

Friendship. Romance. Is it possible that males and females can approach and form a friendship without the complications of romantic love? Is it possible to be "just friends"?

Even using the term "just friends" assumes that such a relationship is, at the very least an inferior form of relationship; a form of unrequited romance where one or the other party settles for second best.

But is it second best or a different form of relationship? If I had restricted all my relationships with members of the opposite sex to potentially romantic relationships then my life would have been much poorer. Over the years I have had, and still have many friendships which were rich, deep, full of love, but were not romantic in any way or form. And I did not consider them to be inferior due to the lack of romantic attachment.

This is not to say that such friendships are not without their own set of challenges and potential for misunderstanding. Nor does it say that, if the opportunity presented itself, I would avoid the entering into a romantic relationship. But given where my life has taken me, the chances of such a relationship is remote in the extreme. And even if I never find this kind of love I know that my life has been, is, and hopefully will continue to be full of love and friendship. And for that I am grateful.

Reefer Madness

2008-05-21T19:38:00.005+12:45

Today I watched the second worst movie of all time. Like the infamous and critically recognised worst movie of all time, Plan Nine From Outer Space, Reefer Madness has reached cult status. The acting was terrible the dialogue worse, and the plot totally implausible.

Reefer Madness was suppose to warn the youth against the vile evils of Marijuana. But its impact on the use of this drug was zilch. If the film was even partially good, or even merely mediocre it would have been forgotten. But no, it is so bad it makes you cringe. And so it has a cult status which means it will forever be part of the pantheon of the wierd, the wacky, and the downright terrible. So here's to Reefer Madness - coming to a DVD store near you!

And they all lived happily everafter

2008-05-18T11:55:00.003+12:45

I've just watched the DVD of Iris. For those who have never seen or heard of Iris, it is the story of a brilliant novelist and intellectual who is struck down by Alzheimer’s disease, a slow degenerative disease of the brain. It is not a movie for light entertainment. Serves me right for my random approach to DVD selection whenever I go to the DVD store.

Iris is the exact opposite of standard Hollywood fare where good overcomes evil and the little guy wins against impossible odds. There was no happy ever after as Iris slowly deteriorated and became lost in her own little world. The older Iris was brilliantly played by Judi Dench. And having worked on dementia wards her portrayal of the lost soul who once was Iris was painfully accurate.

If only the happy ever afters of Hollywood was the way the world worked. But they aren't. They are escapism from the harsh realities of life. The recent twin tragedies of Myanmar and the Chinese earthquake remind us of that.

As always the question for believers is where is God when tragedies, large and small strike. The banal Christian response is that God is somehow in the midst of them. The banal Christian quote is that a sparrow does not fall to the ground without God knowing about it. To which my response is that the sparrow still fell to the ground. The writer of Ecclesiastes had a better response when he wrote "time and chance happen to them all".

Lonely People

2008-05-11T12:20:00.006+12:45

I was waiting the other day to have hair cut. To pass the time I was reading a North & South magazine. One of the articles caught my attention. It was on loneliness. Despite being more connected than ever before due to mobile phones, internet chat rooms and email, we seem to be lonelier than ever before. The old networks, relationships, and communities have broken down, and the new technologies seem incapable of replacing face to face contact.

I am sure that we all get lonely from time. One of the paradoxes of loneliness is that we can be in a room full of people and feel lonely. At other times we can be alone yet not feel lonely at all.

During my lonely periods I can generally identify the cause. My family is spread throughout NZ and Australia, so contact is difficult, especially with my brother in Perth. In the past five years I have only seen him once at a wedding. His kids, my nieces and nephew, have grown up without me seeing them grow up. I miss not being there for my nieces and nephews. Even though it has been many years I still feel the ache of the loss of my twin. Sometimes it is worse than others, generally around anniversaries. I have many friends but they live busy lives, so trying to catch up is difficult.

Others I know have their own challenges. Some with chronic illness leaving them isolated and incapable of doing everything that they want to do. Caring for young children or a new born can also be isolating for the primary caregiver.

These feelings make me appreciate the times I spend with my friends even more. I have one friend who gives me the most awesome hugs. No matter how the week has gone, her hugs tell me I am loved and appreciated. And I think that is what we all need. So thanks Sarah for your hugs. You are a blessing.

This is for all the lonely people
Thinkin' that life has passed them by
Don't give up untill you drink from the silver cup
Riding that highway in the sky

(Jars of Clay, Lonely People from Who We Are Instead)

Call the little fire engine

2008-05-08T20:02:00.001+12:45

It was the usual afternoon routine at work. One of the clients was cooking tea assisted by a staff member. I was in the office checking on a couple of things and the other clients were relaxing in the lounge. Then it happened. The peace and tranquillity was pierced by the screeching sounds of a fire alarm. Rapidly, we all vacated the building. The emergency number was called and staff came running from the other units. Within a few minutes a fire truck arrived and out jumped three firemen dressed and ready for battle. After a short inspection the culprit was found. The oven. A bit of cooking smoke had wafted upwards detected by the smoke alarm. The all clear was given and we all returned to what we were doing. And while this was happening the song from a children's story narrated most Sunday mornings on Children's Requests reverberated round my brain.

I'm a little fire engine
Flick is my name
They wouldn't let me put out fires,
Isn't that a shame
When I grow to be big and strong
I'll fight every flame
When there's a fire in town
Quick
Call the litlle fire engine
Call the little fire engine
Call the little fire engine
Flick

Plausible Deniability

2008-05-06T13:10:00.002+12:45

As I write this I have just received the news that my cousins marriage has just disintegrated. It is sad but somehow unexpected. But now she is left to somehow care for a baby not yet twelve months while coming to terms with a relationship that promised so much but fell apart. Her story is not unique. Even among Christians the divorce rate is staggeringly high.

This was brought home to me a few years back while attending a Christian Singles camp (just think Youth camps on Valium and you’ll get the picture) in the Marlborough Sounds. The number of divorced and separated men and women surprised me. Some had been through multiple marriages; each relationship started with hope yet ultimately failed. And with each failure these was a wrenching of the soul

No wonder God hates divorce. But even those who have not been through a major divorce have had there share of grief, pain and disappointment, myself included. Why is this so? That is a question I’ve asked so many times.

The answer that camps and seminars like the one I attended in the Marlborough Sounds give to those going through such experiences tend to be based on the idea of “purposeful singleness”. While this idea has some merit in terms of finding meaning and purpose where we are currently at and surrendering our plans to God, it also seems to teach a doctrine of denial; that in surrendering our plans to God we must somehow then deny our own desires. This is not Christianity, it is Buddhism. It resulted in a game of plausible deniability where everyone tries their best to wear a veneer of hyper-spirituality. It also resulted in a game of looking while trying your best to appear like you are not looking. All denied that they were playing this game, but it was a game everyone played.

Such games do not deal with the source of the pain. They demand that I lie to myself, to others, and to God. Even the culture of the local church reinforces the need to play such games. I must continue to deny who I am, what I feel, and what I hope for. I must place on the veneer of contented spirituality accepting where God has placed me. Is such fatalism Christianity? Is it healthy?

It is strange that my non-Christian friends are the ones that I’ve been able to most open with. There is no need to play the Christian game. When they tell me their stories about their heartbreaks, their relationship breakdowns, the abortions they’ve had, I can listen, but I feel unable to say to them that Jesus is the answer. Is this because deep down I don’t believe that Jesus is the answer? I don’t think so. But I struggle with the pretence of a Christianity that emphasises form over substance. And I’ve been burnt too many times by those who claimed to be Christian who could only respond with spiritualised clichés.

Best gig ever?

2008-04-28T11:07:00.007+12:45

Over the weekend I went to U2 3D. It was a strange experience wearing these 3-D specs watching Bono et al. strut their stuff in Buenos Aeries. My conclusion was that even in 3-D it is nowhere near as good as a live concert. It lacked the energy of a live concert, especially one where the audiance becomes part of the band. Which made me think about which of the many gigs I've been to over the years was the best one. After much thought I couldn't come up with a best ever, but there have been a number of memorable ones over the years:

Biggest Gig: Tina Turner at what use to be called Lancaster Park. Jimmie Barnes opened for the the Grandmother of Rock and joined her for a duet later on. For a grandmother she sure could rock!

First Big-Name Act: Joe Cocker at the Christchurch Town Hall. Having survived Woodstock and the Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour and spent a number of years pulling beer in an English pub Joe was back (with a little help from his friends)

Best Parachute Gig: Delirious in their first appearance in the natural ampitheatre at Totara Springs near Matamata. It was the year in which I entered the moshpit in white t-shirt and shorts and exited black from all the dust kicked up by the moshing.

Best Party Gig: The Exponents at the James Caberet. A hot sweaty beer soaked sing-along.

Best Small Gig: Bobby Mack at the Southern Blues Bar. A Texan blues guitarist who could make his guitar sing. Only about 200 could squeeze in but he rocked the place. Did the best cover of Voodo chile with the possible exception of Stevie Ray Vaughn.

Best Home Grown Gig: Shihad. with The Datsuns. It took me almost twenty years to finally get to one of their concerts but it was worth it. And the The Datsuns aren't a bad "warm-up" band either.

Worst Live Act: The Bats. They spent most of the concert tuning and retuning their instruments without ever getting the key right.

Gigs I'd love to have gone to: Queen at Wembley. Saw the DVD, listened to the CD. But the live atmosphere at the concert would have been electric.

Standing on the edge

2008-04-22T13:44:00.005+12:45

It is one of the favourite team building activities. Stand on the edge, fold your arms then let go and fall backwards. Then if all goes to plan your team members catch you and return you to your feet. It’s all about trust. Trust in your team that they will catch you, trust that defies the natural survival instinct.

I’ve been thinking a lot about trust recently. Three things have brought it to mind. Two have to do with violations of trust, and a third has to do with trusting despite the circumstances.

Trust is a small word, but we exercise it every day. We trust the bank not to invest unwisely and lose all our money. We trust those in positions of power and influence to not abuse those in their care. Christian trust God to look after and keep us safe.

But recent events have tested the concept of trust in each of these areas. The collapse of financial services and investment companies such as Bluechip has left many facing financial ruin. The Pope has during his recent trip to the US addressed the abuse perpetrated by priests on children. A canyoning trip has gone tragically wrong leaving one teacher and six pupils from Elim Christian College dead.

We need to trust. But when that trust is betrayed how can we trust? In my own life I’ve had to face up to issues of trust and betrayal of trust. Growing up in an abusive cult trust was betrayed at its most fundamental level. While the abuse was not physical or sexual (thankfully) it was emotional. It involved the use of psychological manipulation and mind control to enforce the will of the leader upon those who followed. To go against the will of the leader was to be in rebellion against God.

Disentangling myself from that church proved to be a long slow process. While one can physically leave, to leave emotionally is another question altogether. It required learning to trust again, to trust myself, to trust others, and even to trust those in positions of power. It required forgiveness. Not a one-off forgiveness, but an ongoing process of letting go.

While Christians say that we can always trust God, going through experiences like I’ve been through makes trusting God hard. For where was God during those times when I was being emotionally ripped to shreds to satisfy the narcissistic ego needs of the pastor. Where was God when the same pastor drove a friend of mine to attempt suicide? Where was God amongst the emotional and spiritual carnage that that particular church (and others like it) inflicted upon its membership?

Questioning was (and continues to be) important. For in the process of questioning God I’ve found that he can be trusted. I may not understand him. But in all the questioning, the arguments, and the times I’d screamed at him “I trusted you” he did not reject me. I will continue to wrestle with God, for that is my nature. And in the wrestling I know that he will not reject me, for that is his nature.

I stand on the edge
Eyes closed, arms folded
I am a branch swaying in the breeze
I feel its gentle rhythm oblivious to all around

I let go
Deep down a silent scream emerges

Then floating
The finite touches the infinite
Being has become becoming

Flesh touches flesh
It sags then
Bounces
Eyes open
All around faces smiling

I stand tall again

Hotel Hilbert

2008-04-20T16:42:00.004+12:45

Imagine at the end of a long journey your eyes are weary and you have to stop for the night. Then round the corner there a hotel appears. You stop outside and enter. A receptionist greets you. You ask for a room. The receptionist says that the hotel is full, then checks again and finds a room for you. What kind of hotel is this. It is the Hotel Hilbert (not Hotel California as some might have erroneously guessed from the opening lines) with an infinite number of rooms (welcome to the paradoxical world of infinity!!).

Elim college tragedy

2008-04-16T20:36:00.005+12:45

Today I heard of the tragedy involving 6 students and one teacher of Elim Christian College in Howick. I've visited the church that runs the school on a couple of occassions and a friend who use to go to my church in Wellington and her daughter go to the church. So while this tragedy is distant it is not totally distant in the way that some other tragedies are.

My thoughts and prayers are with the family, friends, and members of the community. From my own experience of dealing with tragedy I know that as hard as the next few days will be, the hardest part will be be in the weeks and months ahead once all the attention has died away and the awful reality strikes home.

To ask questions is a normal response, but in the end there are no easy answers. In fact there are no answers. Into this situation the only thing that is required is love. A love that bears anothers burdens, and allows the weak to be weak, the grief striken to grieve. And most of allows God to be a God who can turn the most appalling of experiences into something good.

Love hurts

2008-04-15T13:28:00.004+12:45

Many decades ago the Everly Brothers released the song “Love Hurts”. The song has been covered by a number of artists in the intervening years from Roy Orbison to Sinead O’Conner. The best version though is by Nazareth, a Scottish hard rock group formed in the early the 70s. Dan McCafferty’s piercing strangulated voice evokes the heart ache, pain and confusion of the flipside of love.

Why should a song about the pain of love be so popular? The Everly brothers are not the only ones to have written a song entitled “Love Hurts. More recently Incubus released their own song entitled of “Love Hurts” with totally different words and arrangement, which nevertheless expresses the same sentiment.

Maybe the popularity of such songs such as “Love Hurts” has to do with the paradox of love. Love is celebrated in film, art and song as the highest of human emotions. It is something to be desired, experienced, and expressed. In a scene from the romantic comedy “Love Actually” family and friends greet each other in the arrivals lounge of Heathrow Airport. In each greeting the joy of love is unmistakable. As the scene plays Hugh Grant’s character observes how commonplace love is. Yet love is also the source of so much pain and suffering. Most at some point have experienced the dagger of love - a relationship gone wrong, to love and not be loved in return, to search and never find. Each failure carries the sting of rejection and disappointment. To love is to hurt and be hurt. Why should this be? Are we nothing more than ignorant knaves sent on some fools errand? Is love a net to snare the unwary?

It has been said that love is a madness. And so it is for in the early days of romantic attachment each partner has the same chemical imbalance in their brains as that found in someone with obsessive compulsive disorder. Hence the euphoria, the obsessions and the compulsions associated with falling in love. Some become so addicted to “falling in love” that they move from relationship to relationship like a drug addict searching for their next fix.

But love is more than romantic attachment. It is a complex many layered thing infusing a vast range of relationships between friends, family and even to those with whom there may be the most fleeting of connections. The Greeks had three terms for love to describe each of its manifestations. Yet even these terms fail to capture its full complexity and subtly.

In all of loves manifestations there is a letting down of the guard. And here is the source of love’s pain. For in making oneself vulnerable there is the ever-present risk of misunderstanding, rejection and ultimately letting go. In this life all relationships come to an end. Mortality makes us fragile creatures. And in death there is the ultimate rejection. This then is the price of love. But to not love is to live in a drab, joyless world, a world devoid of family, friends, and companionship.

The paradox of omnipotence

2008-04-09T21:03:00.003+12:45

I enjoy paradoxes. They can be fun and mind bending at the same time. One paradox that has been around for along time is the paradox of omnipotence. It has various forms but it requires God to create something he cannot do eg

If God is omnipotent then he can create a rock so big that even he cannot lift it.

The key to this paradox is the notion of omnipotence, which infers that he can do anything he wants to do. By this definition God should be able to create a rock that he cannot lift. But if God cannot lift the rock then he is no longer omnipotent. On the other hand if he cannot create such a rock he is limited to what he can do so that he is no longer omnipotent. Hence the idea of omnipotence is inconsistent and God cannot logically exist (by the principle of reductio ad absurdum).

A number of attempts have been made to refute this arguement. Descartes for example contended that since God is transcendant he is not bound by the laws that he created for his creation (such as the laws of logic). Richard Swinburne on the other hand opted for a more limited form of omnipotence in which God is bound to conform to the laws of logic as part of his intrinisc nature. Accordingly God will not create a rock which he cannot move since that would be to violate the laws of logic.

The paradox of omnipotence does I believe point to our limitations in understanding the nature of God. God is by his very nature deeply paradoxical. For the non-believer this is one of the reasons not to believe. For the believer the paradox of God is part of the divine mystery.

Tis a strange, strange world

2008-04-06T20:42:00.004+12:45

There are some things in this world that are, quite simply, bizarre. One is these is the life cycle of the toxoplasma gondii. In order to reproduce t. gondii must pass through the gut of your local Moggi.

Nothing overly unusual in that; plenty of parasites must pass through the gut as part of their life cycle. But it is the way it gets into our moggi's gut that is strange but true.

The cycle requires a local moggie, lets call him Sylvestor

And a garden mouse whom we shall call Basil.

In the normal way of the world if Sylvestor were to meet Basil, Basil's fear response would be triggered, and he would try to run a way as fast as he can. A case of "it is good to run away so that I can live to run another day".

Now this is where it gets bizarre. Remember our friendly parasite, the t. gondii which must find a way into Sylvester's gut so that it can do what gentics says it must do. What it does first is infect Basil. When it infects Basil it damages the part of Basil's brain responsible for the fear response (The amygdala to be precise). Basil is no longer afraid of Sylvester, in fact the damage to his brain is such that Basil is attracted to Sylvestor. Yes attracted to him - a case of let us make love not war. But Sylvestor isn't interested in making love.

As a result Sylvestor is happy because he gets an easy meal. The t. gondii are happy because they are now in Sylvestors gut and can merrily reproduce. And as for Basil . . .

Finding God

2008-03-31T22:34:00.002+13:45

So the EU has decided to find God. Well not God exactly but why people believe in god. And to do this they have set aside a mere €2m. It seems, according to the report in the economist that this belief in god is a mystery that “cries out for a biological explanation”. After all it must have a survivability benefit if you apply a Darwinian perspective.

I predict that the project will fail. The main reason is that it is asking a bad question. One of the hallmarks of good research is the ability to ask good questions. And “what are the biological causes of religion?” is a bad question for it assumes that religion is a materialistic phenomenon, which is arises out of purely naturalistic processes. As such it can be explained by purely naturalistic explanations.

Such explanations tend to exist within an evolutionary psychology paradigm. Not only do such explanations deny the possibility of the supernatural, evolutionary psychology is at best very dubious science. Fundamental to good science is testability. This is the falsification doctrine developed by Karl Popper. Within this doctrine a good scientific theory needs to be able to be tested and falsified. Human behaviour though does not leave a trail of evidence that can be gathered together and analyzed. Thus evolutionary psychologists must either attempt to extrapolate backwards from current behaviour or use the behaviour of animal analogues to hypothesize and test theories. Both approaches are fraught with methodological flaws that make any conclusion meaningless. The result is that evolutionary psychology has developed theories that of the surface seem reasonable but fail to stand up to the most rudimentary and criticism.

If evolutionary psychologists were being scientifically rigorous then they would have to conclude that their discipline is non-scientific. Astrology for example has far stronger claims to being a quantitative discipline than evolutionary psychology. Astrology though has been rejected by the scientific community as non-scientific. As Kuhn showed science is not objective but subject to its own sociological process that serve to maintain paradigms even when they fail to meet the minimal requirements of the scientific method. The development of evolutionary psychology is part of this process.

Scientific attempts to explain religion have produced some howlers. For example it was asserted at one time that the source of religious experience had been located in the hippocampus, which is a structure in the temporal lobe of the brain. The evidence for this is that some individuals who had developed lesions in this area had developed intense religious hallucinations and delusions, due to suffering from a form of temporal lobe epilepsy. The fact that most people who have had a religious experience, including an intense religious experience do not suffer from brain lesions in this area or temporal lobe epilepsy seemed to escaped the supporters of this particular theory.

A more recent theory is based on the observation that individuals suffering from Parkinson’s syndrome tend to be less religious than other people. Since Parkinson’s is linked to lower dopamine levels it was hypothesized that religious experience is due to excess dopamine levels (since excess dopamine is also linked to schizophrenia it could also be argued, based on this line of reasoning, that religion is a form of madness). The problem with this hypothesis is that it confuses correlation with causality, a fundamental error that even undergraduates know to avoid.

Given the a priori rejection of the supernatural such errors are inevitable. They also provide evidence of the underlying biases in the scientific project. Religion is an expression of the fundamental spiritual nature of people. Its ultimate explanation can never be found through scientific enquiry, but through a personal meeting with the fundamental reality that is God.

Escape from Jaffaland

2008-03-25T10:58:00.005+13:45

I gave up this

for this

This weekend I went on a long sojourn to Jaffaland. Apart from visiting my sister who lives in Howick, my main reason for driving 8 hours to I city I hope never to have to live in (Auckland continues to advance infilling green fields with garishly coloured leaky homes and townhouses)is to see one of my fav bands from the last decade, Jars of Clay from Tennessee.

Tennessee is a melting point of a number of musical genres. And many of these influences such as country, folk, gospel, and rock are present in the songs and arrangements of Jars of Clay. The merging of these influences produces songs with tight harmonies and strong melodies. Tempo can range from slow heartfelt ballads to fast driving rock rhythms.

It was Parachute near Matamata ten years ago that they last made an appearance. It was a flying visit, lasting no more than twelve (yes twelve) hours. Still it was a magical evening under the stars.

For the concert I joined Sally, Ian, Kate (who still is suffering from morning sickness poor thing) and the crazed groupies Huggies and Natalie who seemed to be massively overdosing on sugar, but maybe that was just the excitement. Still they were handy for scouring some ace seats right up the front.

In the ten years since they've been away I'd noticed a vast improvement in the way in which the Jar's interacts with the audience. The still retain their tight harmonies and melodies, but the gig had a rockier feel. By the second song everyone was up dancing in the aisles. The evening was a mixture of old favs such as "Flood" and "Love song for a saviour" and some newer songs including one that they had just written (for a full set list see Huggies' blog).

The next day I joined the rest at Elim in Howick to catch up with Louren which was nice despite developing a nasty cold overnight.

I made it safely home, which I am always grateful for, especially as on the way up I came across a end result of a nasty crash. What was left of the car was blocking the other lande. The entire front had been ripped off. A fire engine was already in attendance and the police and ambulance were on their way. There were a couple of other close calls including a near miss for a nose to tail just in front of me near Mangaweka on the way up as well.

Who am I

2008-03-18T19:39:00.001+13:45

I came up with what I thought was a new term, googled it even only to find that someone had already beaten me to it. Damn! But I will share some things and maybe you can guess what it is. It will be revealed at the end of the post.

I enjoy the odd bit of AC/DC (Have screamed the lyrics of highway to hell, only to think afterwards that maybe I shouldn’t – why does the devil have all the best music?), and the odd bit of G’n’R (nothing can beat Paradise City at maximum dBs). I have been to concerts by Shihad, the Datsuns and Blindspot. I had a mullet once, many years ago though all evidence has (thankfully) been lost. I’m a bit of a petrol head – been to Bathurst and got the t-shirt to prove it. I’ve played rugby league (a thug’s game played by thugs to the uninitiated).

On the other hand I’ve been to concerts by the NZSO. I’ve also visited the odd art galley (also got a t-shirt to prove it). I prefer Stella Artois to Lion Red (in fact I would compare Lion Red to stale cat’s urine). I have even been known to wax lyrical about the merits of certain vintages of wine. I go to have my hair cut by a stylist rather than a barber. I read poetry (and even have been known to write the odd piece of poetry).

So what does that make me? Confused. Yes. But maybe the term for someone like me is:

“METRO-BOGAN”

Glimpses

2008-03-11T15:17:00.004+13:45

I have a new EP/CD in my collection. It called glimpses, and is by an emerging singer song writer Sarah Hughes (who just happens to be one of my mates so I’m more than a bit biased).

I would describe the feel of the EP as soulful folk. Its lyrics are deeply personal and are an exploration of how Sarah is trying to make sense of her place in the world. Relationships are a key theme, but not relationship in the usual sense. For the key relationship within Sarah’s songs is with God. Thus her songs are expressions of her faith and spirituality.

Sarah’s lyrics have an innocent quality. Some may see this as a weakness but in my view it is one of her strengths, giving the songs a refreshing quality in contrast to the jaded over-sexualised lyrics found in the most of the songs of contemporary popular culture.

The key strength of the EP is Sarah’s voice. It is plaintive, lyrical, and questioning. Sarah’s folk roots are evident throughout, though she does venture outside folk in the blues orientated “Blues Muse”. Blues Muse is restrained blues. It has none of the note bending energy of a Bessie Smith, or the subtle intonation of an Alberta Hunter. Instead Sarah brings to the song a subtle honesty.

Sarah is at her best in more folk orientated songs such as “Mercy” and “This Love Thing”. She brings a level of honesty and intimacy to these songs that invites the listener into what is a deeply personal conversation. By so doing Sarah is inviting her listeners to be equally honest in their conversations.

Long shadows falling

2008-03-09T17:26:00.003+13:45

Long shadows falling
Days fade into night
The last of summer's radiance
Vanishes
Autumn announces its return
The gentle mornings now crisp with dew
The reaper is at hand
To cut and scythe spring’s hope
Sifting through
What will be the reward for labours past?

Cold grey skies wait
Calling forth the first of winter’s storms
But not yet
Maybe an Indian summer
Where love is reborn
And hopes muffled cry
Is heard again beneath the brooding sky

That's the deal.

2008-03-05T16:30:00.000+13:45

He was an Oxford Don, writer and probably the greatest Christian apologist of the 20th century. She was an American poet and divorcee. What brought them together? Was it fate, blind chance or something more?

In his compartmentalised life he had all the answers, or so he thought. He knew all about love, could probably describe its etymology and linguistic nuances. But until she entered his life, it was all in the abstract, the result of intellectual reflection and enquiry.

As C.S. (Jack) Lewis found, to know about love is not to know love. She, a brash New Yorker entered into his cloistered world of quiet reflection, and threw everything upside down. But it came at a price. The price was pain, the pain of finding love, of experiencing its joys, and experiencing loss, a deep profound loss that changed him for ever.

Such is the plot of a film I watched again after a period of many years. Such were the complexities of the real lives it covered that its portraits are at times stereotypical and simplistic. But at its best it is an achingly beautiful bitter-sweat tale of love found and lost. For death was the thief. It came too soon, it stole, and it destroyed, rending heart and soul.

And yet in the background of death there was hope. And the redemptive power of love. True love experienced, not an existential concept to be pondered in the abstract. Without Joy Grisham, C.S. Lewis would still be a monumental figure. But she humanised him, brought him down to earth, and gave flesh to his bones.

I tried to be staunch watching the film. Before watching I knew the plot, the end from the beginning. I knew it to be slow and ponderous at times. But some of the scenes just cut me up, none more so than when Joy, in an idyllic scene in the Herefordshire countryside, said to Jack, “The pain then is part of the happiness now. That's the deal.” And so it was. And so it is for all of us.

Shadowlands

2008-03-04T10:46:00.003+13:45

I journey through the shadowlands
Where wraithlike figures
Glide
Silently they pass by
Opening my mouth I try to make
Contact
But there is only emptiness
And the rasping breath of solitude

To this place you have brought me
On the border between existence
My flesh has faded
Its sinews have detached leaving
The desiccated remains of all I held dear
Why have you brought me to this place?
Where once there was joy
There is only lament

It is here you allure me
Not with sweat words of flattery
For my mask has been stripped away
And all that which I held to be beautiful
Has been revealed for what it truly is

All my ugliness is exposed
I want to shut my eyes and turn away
I want to run and hide
But where can I hide
All my escapes have been blocked
Naked I must meet you as I am

Yet you call me beautiful
I am confused
Where is the beauty?

Go sow and reap you say
But with what shall I sow?
The locusts have come so many times
I am stripped bare of seed, of hope
Even if I had any I lack the strength to stand
But still you say
Go
My love will fill you
It will be your pride and strength
My head spins, I don’t understand
Yet go I must, but not in my strength
Lead me and guide me,
Help me to see despite my blindness
Let me never be ashamed of the strength I find in you.

When tragedy strikes

2008-02-26T17:54:00.003+13:45

A lot of my friends over the last five years have started or extended their families. While there were a few scares along the way, each pregnancy and birth has produced children that are healthy and developing well. So often has this been the case that it seemed that every birth would turn out this way.

But this all changed this week with some really awful news. As I mentioned in my last post I'm doing some basic Italian classes as something different this year. Our tutor was pregnant and well into the third trimester. As of last week everything seemed to be going well. But we arrived at this week's class to find the tutor missing. We were told that she had just given birth, but the baby had died.

In the short time she had taken to us we had all warmed to her. She was so full of life, so passionate about the subject she was teaching, and so looking forward to the new addition to her family.

It was a tragedy. Neither she nor her family deserved this. Its not right and its not fair, but it happened. And when faced with such loss and pain what can you say?

Its only words

2008-02-25T21:59:00.002+13:45

I am doing something new this year - trying to learn a new language, Italian to be precise, the language of love (or is that French?). Actually it will be just a few phrases, enough to order a beer, or find my way to the hotel.

I am enjoying the challenge, even if I suck. I am finding that you need rubber lips and things are never as intuitive as you think they should be.

But as I try to learn how to introduce myself to strangers and tell them who my am, I am struck by how much I take my ability to communicate for granted. Words are powerful; they help us to connect with others, to share experiences, thoughts, ideas, and feelings. Words can build up, or they can destroy.

I believe in the power of words. I try to provide positive words to my friends, my family and those I work with. But I know that there are times when my words are not positive. Sometimes I let fly with words that afterwards I'd prefer not to have been said.

I believe in a God though who is never like that. His words of encouragement sometimes astound me. Sometimes he gives me words for other people, sometimes they are delivered by others to me. And sometimes he speaks to me in the strangest places. Like a couple of days ago I was painting the outside of my house, one of my long term projects that are keeping my busy at the moment. And as I was brushing on the exterior gloss with as much skill as my amateur efforts allow I was letting my mind wander. It was during this stream of consciousness moment that I felt a little voice inside me tell me "hold onto the dream that has been placed inside of me". Which during the current period of reflection I am going through is just what I wanted to hear. for I had been wondering whether I should abandon some dreams that I'd been waiting for, in some cases for years, dreams which seem to be, for all intents and purposes, dead and buried with no hope of resurrection.

Of course with such words of encouragement there always the challenge to trust and truthfulness. There are always the questions as to whether what I've heard is the real thing of the figment of an overly active imagination (Or maybe inhaling too many paint fumes).

So there is a time of testing, a time of further waiting to see if the word is true or not. I wish there was a short cut, a way of seeing before the event with absolute certainty. But then if I had absolute certainty there would be no room for faith.

Among the paint fumes

2008-02-22T16:26:00.002+13:45

While the weather allows it I’ve been doing a bit of house painting. It can be a rather mindless task at times, all the preparation and sanding, but it allows a kind disconnected dissociated state to emerge where one’s mind can wander into those recesses that it has never been for a long time.

And during those dissociated periods I’ve been trying to take stock of my life, where I’ve been and where I am going. Heavy stuff eh, but then as I look back on some of my recent posts I would say that I have been doing some deep thinking recently, not that I’ve come up with any definitive answers. It can bee a bit like searching for the meaning to life, the universe and everything. It might not be 42 as in the book. But even finding the answer is meaningless until I've figured out what the question is.

Sounds like I’ve been letting the paint fumes get to my head a bit too much. Too much time to think and let my mind wander. But there you have it. This is where my head is at at the moment. And in the midst of these hazy moments I keep on trying to figure out why life is the way it is and not the way I'd planned it all those years ago before I became burnt out and cynical.

Break is over. Time to head back to the paint brush. I'll try not to breath too many fumes this time. I promise!

Happy Valentines

2008-02-14T13:06:00.004+13:45

It's overly commercial. But still its a good thing to celebrate. So for those who have just found love, or to those who have seen that love grow through the seasons of life, who may have weathered many storms but find themselves more deeply in love than the day they first met.

Happy Valentines

Come, take my hand and walk with me
Through the fields
By the light of the moon
Ah look and see
The stars dance and sing
In sweet harmony

Come take my hand and walk with me
All that I am
I give to you
My hopes, my dreams,
My heart too

Come take my hand and walk with me
Together let us discover the mystery
That is love
Where two become one

Come take my hand and walk with me
Until my strengths fades and my eyes grow dim
And then may my final words only be
Of the love I found in thee

Matchmaker, matchmaker make me a match

2008-02-12T21:35:00.000+13:45

It is truly amazing how banal radio contests are. And when you get close to Valentines Day the banality stakes goes up several notches. This stuck early one morning as my alarm radio blared forth switching on the radio in the shrill attempt to tell me its “time to get up!”

And in the early hours of that morning the announcers, in an overly gregarious tone that just shouldn’t be allowed, announced their latest contest with a Valentines twist. They would find three eligible (as in single) guys, knock on the door of an equally eligible female and then have her question the guys and decided who she would go out with, fully paid by the radio station.

Now why am I relating this rather forgettable tale from the depth of my sleep deprivation? Is it lack of coffee? Have I run out of things to say? Or is it something worse?

Well maybe the later. For one of the throwaway lines used to introduce the competition caught my interest. It was along the lines of “we all know how difficult it is for singles to find someone”. Now this is in an age when we are overwhelmed by choice. In fact that is the hallmark of the modern consumer lead society. And there are now more avenues than ever before for finding that someone. Just witness the growth in the internet.

Yet despite the freedom and choice now on offer how many are able to find a relationship that is truly satisfying? We are social beings, built for intimacy. But the fragmentation of modern society is pushing people further apart. The irony is that we are connected and more accessible than ever before. But the quality of communication is shallow, failing to engage the heart and the soul.

Relationships and intimacy have become commercialised. Partners are chosen and discarded on the basis of what can be gained from the other. Money, power, looks, job, position and charisma are all that matters. Competitions and reality shows like the Bachelor/Bachelorette point to the desire for attachment, while demeaning its value.

Elaine Storkey, in her commentary on the current quest for intimacy wrote that “our society has failed to observe that intimacy comes from God”. Therefore the desire for intimacy cannot ultimately be met anywhere else but from God.

The Christian community representing God’s love on earth should be where love in all its forms can be found and expressed. A place of intimacy, caring and support. Yet even in the church there seems to be a crisis in intimacy. Many within find themselves disconnected from each other and from God. Being a Christian has not proved to be an antidote to the desperate search for relationship.

Storkley observes that for humans love is not and option but a requirement. How that requirement is met will be one of the major challenges in the 21st century, both inside and outside the Church. While the church has the answer in God who is the source of all love, it needs to put that love into action.

Non-realism and the radical theology of Lloyd Geering

2008-02-07T23:40:00.000+13:45

Recently I’ve been doing a bit of reading. Not the usual bed time story but some fairly heavy reading on the work of one NZ’s leading and controversial theologians Lloyd Geering. Geering infamously was the subject of a heresy trial in the late 60s for denying among other things the reality of the virgin birth. Geering was exonerated and over the last forty years has developed his controversial theories on the nature of god and religion.

In developing his ideas Geering was heavily influenced by three major ideas. The first, based 20th centenary analysis of language (which in turn is based on the ideas of Emmanuel Kant) is that we construct our own world, influenced by language and culture. The second is a progressive view of history strongly influenced by the axial theory of Karl Jaspers. The third theme is projectionism influenced by Freud and Feuerbach in which humans are assumed to project onto God our deepest longings and desires.

From these strands Geering concludes that God is a myth. For Geering myth has its place. It helps us to make sense of our world and societies to have a common set of values. However in the modern age the idea of a supernatural god is a myth that is no longer relevant. As a result orthodox theology is in the process of terminal decline. And unless Christianity adapts to the modern world it will die. In this Geering echoes the thinking of other luminaries of the post theistic Christianity such as Don Cupitt of the Sea of Faith Movement and Bishop Spong. The belief in a supernatural god, a spirit realm and in Jesus as being both fully human and divine is, according to such thinkers untenable in the 21st century.

Yet contrary to the assertions of Geering that supernaturalist belief is declining, most people still cling to “premodern” beliefs in some kind of spiritual entity. And the Christian community is not fading away, but in many parts of the world, particularly in Africa and South America is growing strongly.

Geering, despite his undoubted intelligence, represents the last gasp of liberal theology. Christianity without God is not Christianity. By denying the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, Geering is stripping Christianity of its power, reducing it to a variant of secular humanism. Such a movement is doomed to die for it shares with humanism its fundamental weakness, namely the inability to regenerate the human heart. Nor is it particularly new. It is based on a radical nominalism, a heresy that has been in existence for centuries.

Geering, like his fellow liberal theologians is a study in the failure of the human intellect, when it divorces itself from the God who created it. All its utterances become nothing more than a clanging cymbal, full of noise signifying nothing.

Khe Sanh

2008-02-05T20:20:00.000+13:45

A had a strange experience last night. I caught this documentary on the “most hated family in America”. The family had formed themselves into a church of about 60-70 members and part of their Christian duty set up anti-homosexual protests outside the funerals of veterans killed in the Iraq war. Their justification for their protests was that the veteran’s death was part of God’s judgement due to America’s depravity and sin.

Now you may think that this kind of fanatical religious bigotry is found only in American cults. Not so. I grew up in an extremely conservative church in NZ that among other things believed that the Maori should have been wiped out by the colonists, and that God’s wrath was about to be poured out upon the sinful world. Only the elect, i.e. us would escape God’s judgement.

I was only able to watch a few minutes. It brought back too many painful memories of the emotional and spiritual abuse. For those growing up in the church of my youth, every aspect of our lives was controlled, down to who we could date and who we could marry. The pastor was considered to be omnicompetent and could veto any proposed match. Even before we could go out on a “date” we had to get the pastors permission. We constantly lived in fear. Fear of doing the wrong thing, of being seen as a dissident, of missing out and ending up in the lake of fire. We lived a life of shallow compliance, believing that obedience was the way to godliness.

Strange how even years/decades later watching something like this can bring back memories long since forgotten. Not that I expect anyone who has not been through a similar experience to understand. When I first came out I tried to talk about it with the new Christian community that I had become involved with, but all I met was a wall of disbelief, and a look that asked “are you an alien?”

In one sense I am. I still feel disconnected, rootless. I am still waiting for God to redeem the years that the locusts have eaten. I have yet to meet anyone who is able to go the extra mile, who is able to understand or at least listen, who will not walk away when I want to go deeper. There is God you might say, but for most of my life God has been on mute. He still seems so distant, so far away, so disinterested. While so much of my life is better, there is the realization that it is still not what I planned or hoped for.

Looking at the children and teenagers growing up in the “most hated church in America”, I wonder how many will come to their senses and leave, and if they do will they be able to get a life worth living. Will they find friends who accept them, will they find love, a normal life, a normal family. Or will they drift, living a life of quiet desperation, never quite belonging anywhere.

In writing this I am reminded of a song popularised by Cold Chisel. It was a song of and about the disaffected Vet Nam vets. While I cannot enter into their experiences, many of the emotions they felt of alienation and not belonging are ones I can relate to.

Khe Sanh (by Don Walker)
I left my heart to the sappers round Khe Sanh
And my soul was sold with my cigarettes to the blackmarket man
I've had the Vietnam cold turkey
From the ocean to the Silver City
And it's only other vets could understand

About the long forgotten dockside guarantees
How there were no V-dayheroes in 1973
How we sailed into Sydney Harbour
Saw an old friend but couldn't kiss her
She was lined, and I was home to the lucky land

. . .

So I worked across the country end to end
Tried to find a place to settle down, where my mixed up life could mend
Held a job on an oil-rig
Flying choppers when I could
But the nightlife nearly drove me round the bend

And I've travelled round the world from year to year
And each one found me aimless, one more year the more for wear
And I've been back to South East Asia
But the answer sure ain't there
But I'm drifting north, to check things out again

Summer

2008-01-28T08:39:00.000+13:45

Summer started slowly
Words spoken, thoughts shared
Perhaps this would be the one
Be careful now
Do not let hope have its way too soon
The seed sprouted
Spreading its tender shoots towards the sun
But the ground was stony and bare
And the leaves withered
Days without speaking
A silence that said more than words could say
Hope is gone
Where is the summer? Over too soon
Where once there was sweetness
There is only winter’s moaning lament
Another sad song
Of love unfulfilled

They went out with a wimper

2008-01-06T09:05:00.000+13:45

The final home game of the season and in front of their third best crowd they went out with a wimper. Again they showed why they are near the bottom of the competition with insipid attack and a defense that went to sleep at key moments in the match.

While the first goal was a bit flukey the second came about due to a defense that was slow to adjust. It was well taken with ball control of the highest level but how Brosque got behind the defense so easy is symtomatic of a defense that stll is not not up to the required standard.

The Sydney defense on the other hand showed how to snuff out any attack. Even when outflanked they still adjusted quickly and had enough players in the centre in the right positions to easily deal with the threat.

While Alrich was able to get into good position his final cross lacked the quality to give the strikers the chance they needed; often the cross would be blocked before getting anywhere near or sail wide. Coveney's days as a striker are over, he lacks the pace, guile and positional nous. Aloisi's age has caught up with him. A reckless late challenge, born of frustration will see him miss next weeks game and return for a final hurrah against the Mariners on the 19th.

With the return of their missing midfilders it is hoped that the final two games will be better. But both Melbourne and Central Coast will be tough. And defeat in both games could mean finishing last.

I have a dream

2008-01-04T15:00:00.000+13:45

I have a dream, so Martin Luther King declared; a dream of justice and equality for all no matter what their race. But Martin Luther King never lived to see the dream fulfilled. And though the civil rights movement has made great strides, it still has not approached achieving anything near the lofty ideals contained in King’s “I have a dream speech”.

Each of us has our own dreams. Maybe nowhere near as lofty and that of Martin Luther King. More personal perhaps, like getting that “dream” job, or finding that ideal person who will be our soul mate for the rest of our lives. But how many have achieved their dreams?

Dreams are important. They provide the motivation to get out and do something, better ourselves, make sacrifices. Dreams are the substance of hope.

But what happens to hope when a dream dies, crushed under the weight of disappointment. When time and chance conspire to snatch away from us that which were had hoped for, waited for, sacrificed for? And where is God in the midst of such disappointments?

Prominent author and Christian psychologist, Larry Crabb has put forward a controversial and provocative idea. Namely that God is the author of our disappointments. That he actually is the one who breaks our dreams and crushes our hopes with the aim of breaking us. And in our broken state God aims to bring us to a deeper relationship with himself.

To his fans Crabb provides both a explanation for our disappointments and a way of facing them. Underlying all our dreams is a sinful nature that is depraved and outside of God irredeemable. Our dreams then are the produce of a sinful and depraved heart that needs redeeming. And the only way to redeem our hearts is to break our dreams so that we turn to God as the only one who can satisfy our deepest desires.

To Crabbs critics, Crab presents a god who is capricious, authoritarian, and cruel. It is a god whose promises cannot be relied upon, a god who can’t be trusted. The promise of joy through disappointment is a false promise for even if we find the joy, so capricious is God that there is no guarantee that he will not change our circumstances to take that joy away from us, in the hope that we will turn to him at a deeper level. But why should we turn to him if he is so untrustworthy?

On a personal level I respect Crabb’s intentions and some of what he writes is indeed insightful. However I find that, like his critics, the god he presents is one I’d find hard to love. Fear yes, but love, no. He seems too much like a jealous insecure parent who so desperately wants to hold onto the affections of his children that that he will do anything to deny them any kind of happiness. Such a father is both cruel and abusive.

My feelings are in no small way influenced by my own disappointments and dreams that have been dashed over the past decades of my life. Dreams that I’d faithfully placed before God only for them not to come to pass. Rather than producing a deeper level of faith and desire to know God more these experiences have produced a profound cynicism about the goodness of God and the efficacy of prayer, the very opposite of what should have been the outcome.

Despite these disappointments I still believe in God. But I cannot provide a rational basis for that belief. Maybe at a deep unconscious level there is an irrational wish projection at operation here. Or maybe there is something real behind the shadows. This side of eternity I doubt I will ever find the answer. Maybe Job said it best when he uttered

O that I might have my request
And that God would grant me my desire
That it would please God to crush me
That he would let loose his hand and cut me off!

This would be my consolation
I would even exult in unrelenting pain
For I have not denied the words of the Holy One

Job 6: 8-9

Psychoheresy

2007-12-26T21:22:00.000+13:45

I work in the mental health and disability sector. As part of my work I utilise, as much as possible, current evidenced base psychological theories and research to care for my clients.

Yet there is within the greater Christian church a movement that argues that I am dabbling in error. Worse, by accepting some contemporary psychological explanations of the conditions that I deal with, and the need for therapeutic interventions, I am guilty of “psychoheresy”.

This is a serious charge. To be guilty of heresy, for the Christian, is to be guilty of turning your back upon the faith. It is to reject the teachings of the church and the truth of God as revealed through his son Jesus.

According to my critics the Bible is both necessary and sufficient and that all mental illness is due to sin. Furthermore the solution to mental illness is repentance, prayer and reading the Bible as the source of all truth. The critics of psychoheresey charge that contemporary psychology is a Trojan horse undermining Christian truth.

Now I believe in the Bible. It has been my guide through all my life. But is it the source of all truth? It is, in view, God’s revelation of himself to his creation. It revels the way though which we, his creation, can be restored to the relationship God intended from the beginning, through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. It reveals why we, outside of this revelation, cannot enter into this relationship due to the corrupting influence of sin. It also reveals how God is at work in the world to bring to pass that which he has planned since the foundation of the world.

The bible is necessary and sufficient for salvation by introducing its readers to the only one who can lead us to salvation, who took all our sin upon himself at the cross.

But the bible is not the sum total of all truth. It is silent on a number of areas. It says very little about engineering, mathematics, archaeology, biology or a host of other disciplines. While it says that man is mind, body and spirit, it says nothing about how each of the constituent parts is constituted. Neither does it outline how they interrelate.

Science has filled in much about the physical world in which we live. From scientific research we know far more than the writers of the Bible about how our physical brains work. We also know what happens when parts of our brains break down. Through imaging studies and post mortuum examination of the brains of the healthy and unwell individuals who have donated their body for research we know that when a person suffers from a mental illness parts of their brain malfunctions and changes. From other studies we also know that the brain chemicals of the mentally unwell are out of balance.

In summary, the brains of the mentally ill are sick and in need of repair. We also know that experience and genetics have a part to play, though how is still, in many cases, a mystery.

Sin has a part to play. Sin has corrupted our spirit. We also live in a sinful world, so we experience sinful influences. Science though cannot address the matters of the spirit. But it can address the matters of the body.

The critics of “psychoheresy” though seem singularly incapable of making this distinction. They lack the discernment and subtlety of mind necessary in understanding the interface between science and the spirit as it relates to the mind. As a result they engage in a wholesale rejection of the science of the mind, arguing the Bible is the only source of knowledge about human behaviour.

Much in the psychological literature is of dubious value. It is the result of flawed research and false philosophical underpinnings. But does this mean that all psychological research needs to be rejected? I would argue that the results of psychological inquiry, when it is based on sound research, adds much to our understanding of emotional and psychological trauma. At its best it compliments the revelation of scripture. Discernment is the key.

A Christmas Carol

2007-12-21T18:18:00.000+13:45

Where is God
When it hurts so bad
That it feels like someone has reached
Underneath your ribs
And ripped it out
All of it
Your heart, your hopes
Everything is gone

When even your friends do not understand
On the outside all is good
I smile I laugh, I pretend
Yeah I’ve got it all together

But
I haven’t
And how many
Do the same dance
Pretending everything is alright

Into this world you came
A baby in a manger
A child in swaddling cloth, so helpless
The very creation you came to save
Cared for you
They changed you, fed you, looked after you

Amongst death and squalor you breathed
You felt pain and endured so much
In a life cut short

Christmas – a time to remember and share the good times
But
How many hate its very name
It brings back memories so cruel
We are broken but how many want to think
Of the broken pieces of our lives
We want to celebrate but can’t

In that child that became a man there is hope
Yet at this time I do not feel it
But I believe
In the hope that revealed itself as a man
And that is enough
For beyond the birth there is the cross
And the promise to all who might believe

Same old phoenix, always losing

2007-12-03T20:38:00.000+13:45

The season is now two thirds through. And how are the Phoenix doing? On the attendance front a lot better than the Knights. The Knights averaged 7,106 supporters per game compared to the current season to date average of 12,244 for the Phoenix excluding the Beckham benefit match. The season to date average though was inflated by the Beckham promotion giving free tckets to the Adelaide match. If we exclude that match the average was 11,130. Still healthy but the worrying trend is that attendances have been steadily falling from a season opening attendance of 14,421 to 8,062 for the Wellington - Sydney game two weeks prior to the Beckham match.

In terms of results, the Phoenix has won only 20% of their matches. The woeful Knights still managed to win 23.8% of their games over the season. Goal difference is much improved at -0.6 per game for the Phoenix, compared to -1.2 per game for the Knights. However, defensively the Knights and Phoenix are about the same at 1.8 goals conceded per game for the Phoenix compared to 1.9 goals per game for the Knights. The early season goal scoring of the Phoenix has given the Phoenix a much better offensive record at 1.2 goals scored per game compared to 0.6 goals per game for the Knights. However the recent goal drought of the Phoenix and the inability to put away 10-man teams is a cause for deep concern.

* Point Conversion Rate = total points earned/total points available

My conclusion is that despite all the hype the current performance of the Phoenix is only marginally above that of the recently departed Knights. The long term viability of the Phoenix requires significant on field improvement, particularly on the defence side, if the crowd numbers are to be maintained and the financial viability of the club in the competition assured.

Holiday snaps

2007-11-29T09:55:00.000+13:45

Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem

2007-11-28T11:03:00.001+13:45

As I write this yet another attempt is being made to create a long lasting peace in Israel. Leaders of a number of Arab countries have gathered in Annoplis to attend a forum staged by President Bush and Secretary of State Condilina Rice. Olmert reached out the olive branch in greeting his Arab neighbours and adversaries in Arabic. Abbas representing the Palastinian state was also there.

However some key figures were missing, notably reprentatives of Hammas, bitter enemies of Abbas' Fatah. Hammas were victorious in a short but bitter civil war in the Gaza strip which they now control. Home to more than 1 million Palestinians, of which 87% now live in poverty, and cut off from the rest of the world, Gaza is a boil about to burst.

And Gaza is not the only trouble spot. Settlements continue to grow apace in the West Bank. Many of the larger settlements are now the size of small cities with populations of tens of thousands. The growth of these settlements continue to be a source of resentment to local Palestinians. How will the fate of such settlements fit into any future peace deal? Inhabitants of these settlements represent a powerful force in Israeli political life. Olmert cannot afford to offend them.

The Balfour declaration, which formed the basis of the formation modern Israel in stating the governments of Great Britain's support of the formation of a national home in Israel for the Jews further stated

". . .it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country" [emphasis mine]

Clearly this has not been achieved. The rights of the non-Jewish people have been prejudiced. Indeed the formation of the Jewish state made such prejudicing inevitable for the state had within it two competing irreconcilable claims to the same lands.

The various wars since the formation of Israel against its arab neighbours have reinforced Israel's sense of insecurity. While the prospect of a conventional war with its arab neighbours is now very low, they have too much to lose, Israel remains on a war footing involved in a long term insurgency against Hamas. As long as sense of grievance remains it will provide a fertile recruiting ground for Hamas.

Added into this mix is the religous dimension. To be a martyr in a Jihad is to be garanteed a place in paradise. In fact it is the only guarantee of entry into paradise for the moselm. for the conservative religous Jew, Israel is the land given to them in perpetuity by God through the patriarch Abraham.

What then is the prospect for peace? Will this latest attempt at a road map to peace succeed? The prospects are poor.

The next big thing

2007-11-12T21:57:00.000+13:45

The answer is here. And it was in a pill all along. Tired of not feeling like you've achieved all that you wanted in life. Been waiting for that breakthrough, to go on to the next level with God. Have you prayed and paid and still the blessings have not come your way.

Well do I have news for you. It is good news. IT IS GOOD NEWS. And it was waiting on the web all along.

As we all know good things come to those who dilgently wait and hunger and seek. After much waiting and seeking I have found it. And like a candle it cannot be hidden under a tree.

Havidol is what we have all been searching for even if we didn't know it. But now that we know it it would be a sin to do nothing. For wasn't that which the unfaithful servant did, burying his talent in the ground.

Havidol; The next big thing

Vive le France

2007-10-07T14:56:00.000+13:45

The All Blacks' reputation as world cup chokers remain intact, with a little help from a referee who let the occasion get the better of him.

The much talked about conditioning programme accounted for nothing. At times the All blacks looked like headless chooks. They lacked the killer instinct and the ability to make the most of their advantage in possession and territory.

Ultimately it was tactics and the lack of game time that let them down. And both of these factors were under the control of "brains trust". The so called "three wise men" showed themselves to be less than wise. Rather than peaking at the right time, the All Blacks were underdone. They were bereft of the ideas and the tactics needed to outflank a stifling defense.

Why are the All Blacks put in as favourites when time and again they show that they can't handle the big match pressure of the world cup? As with every previous failed effort there is a time when the players and coaching staff are required to stand up and give account of themselves. To show that they more than mere hype.

Today was that day. They were measured and found wanting. Their inability to do the hard grind was their undoing. There can be no excuses. The charade of being the best team in the world has been exposed. Too much time doing promotional work. Too many pampered egos.

There will be talk of how next time it will be different. But who believes it any more.

Man-camp

2007-10-05T22:36:00.000+13:45

Last weekend I went to a man-camp. What is a man camp you might ask? Well it is a camp for men. Like duh!

But seriously it was good to get away for a weekend and share some guy time. In case anyone is thinking I am not going new age metro-sexual. For one thing I don’t have a hairdresser called “Sven”. And I am not turning up as an over the top has-been for the LA Galaxy.

Amongst real guy stuff like trying to play hacky-sac (which I suck big time) and playing a variant of “forcing back” (remember the school playground kiddies), it was a time to listen to share and to learn about what it means to be a real man. Not the plastic type presented in the media.

Much of the teaching during the weekend was based on the work of John Eldredege of “Wild at Heart” fame. The teaching raised some interesting questions; questions that provided a springboard for some deep soul searching.

Having said this I have some major reservations over much of the teaching, being based on the work of John Eldrege. Eldredge has an action orientated view of masculinity. He argues in his book “The Way of the Wild Heart” that men grow into their masculinity though a series of discrete stages. The evidence presented to support each of these stages though tends to be a combination of his personal experience and selective scenes from popular movies. When he called the insipid movie Kingdom of Heaven an “insightful picture of the masculine journey” I laughed out loud. There is no way, from what I could see, that that this meandering misrepresentation of the historical crusades could provide the slightest insight into what it means to be a man.

In his book Eldredge calls for the need for hard work and discipline. However in developing his ideas Eldredge appears to have rejected the hard work required to understand both Christian theology and developmental psychology. A sound understanding of both of these fields would having provided a stronger foundation for his theory.

Eldredge calls psychology textbooks boring. And indeed grappling with the thinking contained within the current theories of psychosocial development can be boring and tedious. It requires sifting fact from superstition. It requires weighing the details of the evidence to determine what the truth is. Rather than basing his thinking on a solid base he retreats into vacuous reviews of the current crop of action-adventure movies.

Therefore I am forced to agree with Eldgredge’s critics. He has raised important questions but has failed to answer his own questions, providing instead cartoonish cut-outs of what true masculinity is all about.

Because of this I look back on the weekend with mixed emotions. There were some great experiences. But it also contained a number of ideas that I find questionable at best.

Catch a falling star

2007-09-26T12:02:00.000+12:45

Want to catch a falling star. $100 is all you need. The Beckham road show is coming to town; along with an entourage of the mediocre as his supporting cast. The Galaxy is not chocked full of talent. Indeed outside of the fading Beckham there is noone there that could claim to be anywhere near "world class". Still you get to see the phoenix play twice. But at that price I will stay at home.

So the pretty boys scored

2007-09-15T17:00:00.000+12:45

It was a surprise. The pretty boys actually did something for a change. Though for Daniel it was just taking and retaking a penalty. Outside of that he was as ineffective as ever. This despite all the preseason hype. He is the most underwhelming professional footballer I've seen in twenty years. Felipe's goal though was (as far as this league goes) one out of the box.

After five minutes and the defensive howler that gifted Sydney FC their first goal I had the same ol' feeling. Football Kingz 'ere we go again. But at least this team appears to have a bit more heart - & a manager who might know what he's doing.

It is early days though. The defence still looks fragile. Sydney FC this season is a shadow of last years side - too many egos with over inflated visions of their ability. Let us see how the remainder of the season goes. I will be there next Saturday night chanting:

I am Phoenix til I die
I am Phoenix til I die
I know I am
I am sure I am
I am Phoenix til I die

To score or not to score - that is the question

2007-09-10T10:01:00.000+12:45

It only takes one goal to win a match. That is the painful lessons that the Phoenix and their supporters took home from last nights match against the Jets. You might have all the possession, dominate the play and have plenty of shots on goal. But if you don’t score then it could be a long trip home.

And that is what happened. There was no shortage of chances. Smeltz was constantly able to use his strength and skill to get past his man. But the finishing was woeful. The pretty boy Brazilians have some nice touches but when it counted they show a pathetic inability to finish. Yet that is what strikers and “attacking midfielders” are there for. Not to look pretty but to set up and score goals. From what I’ve seen the Brazilian pair of Filipe and Daniel Daniel are grossly overrated and lack heart.

So it is back to the drawing boar. The Phoenix are where their inept predecessors were, at the bottom of the table. If they can’t turn around their form, show some heart and score goals, then the good will and support that they currently have will evaporate.

My precious

2007-09-03T20:38:00.001+12:45

Five tries in the first half, and it is back where it belongs. Thanks to Waikato for going up to North Harbour last week to collect it for us. But now the week in storage is over. It was only temporary. Of course you knew that. Still it is good to see it back in the arms of those who truly love and cherish it. It is our precious, ours, ours! We will never let it go. My Precious.

The hidden story

2007-08-29T21:54:00.000+12:45

Years ago, during a trip to the USA, I flew over the Lake Meade, the reservoir formed by the Hoover Dam. At the time I was awestruck by its size of the lake and the dam which held it. Today tens of thousands reap the benefit of the dams construction and the electricity it generates.

Years later I learnt of the cost of this marvel of Engineering. 107 workers died during its construction. Many more were maimed by work place accidents or suffered long term effects from carbon monoxide poisoning while tunnelling through.

In the depths of the depression the army of workers were willing to put their lives at risk everyday for the alternative was destitution and starvation. Even if they escaped death or injury the working conditions were harsh, and the living conditions for their families even harsher. Many lived in tents in the desert. When a town was finally built to house the workers and their families, ¼ of their wage was subtracted by the company to pay for accommodation.

Some of the workers who were affected by carbon monoxide poisoning tried to sue the company who employed them, but during the trial corrupt doctors employed by the company testified that the mean were suffering from influenza.

The story of the Hoover Dam made me start to think. How many of the benefits that I currently enjoy are due to the oppression and exploitation of the powerless. New Zealand’s history is full of betrayal, land confiscation and exploitation. It is part of the hidden history of New Zealand. While the safety and working conditions have improved dramatically many, especially in the construction sector still risk major injury every time they go to work.

Also many of the imported goods found in the shops are manufactured in sweat shops where safety standards are minimal and the health of the workers badly affected by unsafe work practices. I greatly benefit from these goods. But am I supporting the oppression of the weak by buying such goods? Is their blood on my hands as much as the blood of the dead workers of the Hoover Dam is on the hand of the managers of the company that built it?

Expectations

2007-08-19T16:42:00.000+12:45

I remember going to various Christian camps and conferences over the years and hearing a lot about the need to expect something big from God. That what I'll recieve depends upon what I expect from God. If I expect something little then that we will recieve little whereas if I expect something big then I will recieve something big.

And I've gone expecting something big from God only to find that these expectations have not been met. So I've questioned what God was doing, and why should I expect anything from God. Afterall "he who does not expect will never be disappointed!"

But maybe I've misunderstood what this expectation thing is all about. We have an infinite and holy God who is passionate us to the point that he pursues us to the ends of the earth if needs be. But I am sinfilled and finite and my lmiitations colors my expectations of what God wants to achieve.

So how do I expect the right thing from God, so that my expectations are met and I don't go away disappointed? Maybe it begins not with me but with God. Beginning with God is always a good place to start. It is about finding a meeting place with this God of infinite love and compassion, a God who is concerned about justice and suffering. It is about laying down my own agenda and hearing what God wants to say and listening to his heartbeat.

In this reflection I am reminded of the example of Moses. Moses was called a friend of God and was able to talk to Him face to face. In reading about the relationship Moses had with God the thing that strikes me most is the honesty of Moses, and his humility. From this I conclude that if I truly want to meet with God then I also need to be both honest and humble. Only then will I never be disappointed.

Romance from a distance

2007-08-07T21:41:00.000+12:45

Christians are called to a personal relationship with an invisible God. Now how can you have a personal relationship with someone who can’t be seen? It has all the problems, frustrations and pitfalls of along distance relationship magnified 1000x over.

In a long distance relationship the other person is never present. This leads to a sense of unreality to the relationship. Even with the aid of modern communications such as email, text and MSM the unreality of the relationship continues. This is because most communication is non-verbal. It is the look, the sigh, the smile. It is how the word is said as much as what is said. All these are missing in a long distance relationship. In its place is a sense of frustration and confusion. Have I really understood what the other is saying? Have they understood me?

This is why most long-distance relationships are doomed to fail. Misunderstandings are inevitable. The frustration builds to breaking point. Then the end comes, sometimes in a massive explosion, sometimes at the end of a slow drift where neither realizes it is over until nothing is heard from the other for weeks or months. How the end comes is of little consequence, the only thing that matters is that the relationship is over.

There are some whom are immune to the contradictions and frustrations of the type of relationship. They are the mystics of the world, the St Teresa’s pierced by the arrow of God who have entered into some kind of mystical romance that is beyond the comprehension of mortals like myself.

And what of the rest of us? How is it possible to keep the relationship alive when most of the time if you are like me you are never sure what God is saying or doing; when the whisper of God is so quiet that it is inaudible. Some would say that we have the Bible as God’s love letter to us.

But often I find the Bible is like some letter written years earlier. As treasured as it is, and as deep as the truth that is contained within its pages, it cannot always meet me where I am right now. Such is the paradox of my relationship with God. As real as he is he is also so unreal.

Writting my euology

2007-08-03T16:09:00.000+12:45

I try not not think about. After all death is so final so complete. It marks an end. And I've experienced too many ends so far.

Yet here I was in a classroom asked to think about and write my own eulogy. It seemed so strange. But as I thought about it a few random thoughts came to mind

In writing these down I realize that ultimately I can't write my own eulogy; only those who survive me can do that.

What I can do is live a life worthy of the eulogy that I'd want to be written. so what it is worth here are some of my random thoughts -

Accepted all whom I met where they were, not where I'd want them to be
Never asked more of anyone than that which they were able to give
Was loyal, trustworthy, loved and loved in return
Was faithful to my values and true to myself
Served my god with my whole heart and was loved by him in return
Never gaved up no matter how hard the road
Felt the pain of life, but found a way to rise above it
Embraced life for what it is.

The 10% question

2007-07-29T12:01:00.000+12:45

I grew up in a church that taught that we still needed to tithe. I now attend a church where tithing is rarely if ever talked about. Occasionally I catch one of those televangelists who talk about the need to tithe. One even went so far as to say that we need to tithe on any increase in the price of our houses when we sell.

The conflicting teaching on this subject is confusing. Am I still required to pay 10% to the church? If so which church – my local denomination, or can I spread it around. Or is tithing one of the rules that was relevant only for the theocratic state of Israel, and is not relevant to new covenant believers?

Here is a brief outline of some of the teaching on tithing that I’ve found in the bible

1) Abraham paid a tenth part of the spoils to Melchizedek after his defeat of Chedorlaomer in Gen 14:1-20.

2) There was more than one tithe in the old covenant. Firstly, there was the priestly tithe used to support the work of the priests who had no allotment of land (Lev 17:21-30). Secondly, there was the tithe to be used to attend the annual religious festivals (Deut 14:22-26). Thirdly, every third year a tithe was set aside for the orphans widows and strangers (Deut 14:28).

3) God considered Israel’s failure to pay the tithe to be robbing him.

4) There is no mention of the tithe from the book of Acts onwards.

5) The old covenant with its emphasis on law has passed away and now we have a new covenant based on grace (Heb 8)

6) Those who live by the preaching of the gospel should be supported in this work (I Cor 9:1-14).

7) In giving each person is to make up their own minds according to the richness of God’s blessing (II Cor 8-9).

My conclusion is that “tithing” as a literal continuation of the old covenant 10% no longer holds in the new covenant. But there is an obligation to support the work of the gospel. Thus the principle of tithing holds. The specific amount though is to be decided between the believer and God.

time to blog

2007-07-25T22:26:00.000+12:45

Time to blog again

It has been a while I know but life has been too cluttered. I blame it on ____ and on ___.

Easy to blame others for your misfortune and lack of doing stuff. But its their fault. Other people stress me out. They demand so much of my time and require that I do things that I would rather not do.

They also do stupid things that make me wonder which side of he planet they are coming from.

Ah people. There are times I wish I could find my own island where the sun always shines and I don't have to worry about anything. Where the beer is chilled to the right temp and the wine has the right balance between tannin and bouquet.

But after a while I know I'd get bored with such a life. So here I am. In the midst of the muck of the real world. Still I could do without someof the stress I am going through at the moment.

Tim was wrong

2007-07-07T10:46:00.000+12:45

Tim, who is one of my family friends, a few years back said that I looked like a certain neurotic New York comedian Woody Allen. Well Tim was wrong and I have the evidence to prove it.

Wrestling with angels

2007-07-01T18:29:00.000+12:45

There is a tradition within the Christian community of giving testimonies of how God has been at work in the believer’s life. Such testimonies are designed to build faith by describing how God turned a situation around. But sometimes there is a different kind of testimony, one that jolts preconceived notions of how God is suppose to act.

It has been almost ten years, but I can still remember the testimony as if it was yesterday. It was at a Christians “singles” camp where Christians gathered in order to learn about how to live a “Christ centred single life” (I such camps are exercises in denial but that is another story). She stood up and described how in her early 20s she had come to a Lord. At the time she was in a relationship with someone who was not a believer so she finished the relationship. In the intervening years she served the Lord diligently in a number of different areas. And here she was, intelligent, eloquent, passionate about God, and alone with no prospect of her situation changing any time soon.

At the time I remember thinking “this is not right”. She sacrificed everything to follow God. Yet her hopes and dreams were not fulfilled. How can God be so callous, so cruel? How indeed? As the years have passed I’ve found that she is not the only one. I have met dozens of others whose story are similar. And I’ve struggled to make sense of God’s inaction. After all did not God inspire the psalmist to write “Take delight in the Lord / and He will give you the desires of your heart.” And does he not present himself as all powerful who can do “abundantly far more than we can ask or imagine”.

As a good evangelical I’ve been taught to believe in the power of prayer. But when confronted with stories like the one above, or when considering the disappointments and dead ends in my own life I find myself underwhelmed. There have been too many cases where hopes and dreams have been placed upon the alter only to find that there has been no provision, the knife has struck and the dream died.

So I wrestle with God over the injustice of it all and what my response should be. In my search I’ve found far too often, members of the Christian community resorting to bland meaningless clichés. Such clichés say a lot about the shallowness of contemporary Christianity which seems so ready to give an answer it never gets round to hearing the question.

I am not going to give my answer, for I don’t have one. Instead I’ll leave the question open.

Hope for the hopeless

2007-06-27T22:03:00.000+12:45

For the past couple of months I’ve been working in a forensic unit. Just think of “Silence of the Lambs” and Hannibal Lector and you get the Hollywood version of where I’ve been. For all but the past week I’ve hated it. Now I am getting use to it but still it is so far from Hollywood I wondered where they got their ideas from.

Everyday I have to remember which doors to lock and when it is ok to unlock a door. Gradually the routine becomes ingrained and it becomes almost automatic.

Some of the clients have done some really awful things. But I have to look beyond what they have done to see the real person. Many have suffered horrendous abuse in the past which has distorted their thinking and how they relate to others. For others their illness has lead them to believe that they are not in control of their actions.

Now that I am more acclimatised to the environment I have paused to reflect on the way Jesus sees us. Sin has darkened our soul and leads us to so things that we would not have otherwise done. While I might not be guilty of any acts of violence or broken any major law, am still guilty of disobeying God. From birth I was a sinner separated from God. Despite all this I am loved, redeemed, justified.

Is anyone beyond redemption? The message of the cross is that though sin sears the soul and darkens the mind no one is beyond help.

I see all those that I care for trapped by their illness and their history. There seems no help for them. Yet despite this and despite what they have done or will do they are loved as much as you or me. As the psalmist asks “Where shall I go from your spirit o Lord?” Where indeed – is there anywhere too dark for God.

To the victor goes the spoils

2007-06-15T22:04:00.000+12:45

They said that it wasn't a civil war. But the dead pile up, thrown onto the street, while black masked killers shoot their weapons into the air in triumph. The news reports suggest the end is in sight, but in this sad land there is no end to the misery, the grief, and the lust for vengence.

Hamas have gained a great victory, but what have they won? Are they any nearer to peace, to a homeland, to victory over their hated neighbours? Their victory and how it was gained will only feed the insecurity of Israel, and the paranoia of the USA. The leaders of Hamas and their followers are so blinded by the love of violence that they can't see how pathetic their victory is.

And so the land will weep all the more. And with each martyr new reasons will be found to continue the forever war that is Palestine.

I have wept many a tear over that troubled land. And I will weep many more till peace is found. But what price peace? When the body count and misery becomes more than the land can bare and the fighting stops because there is no one left to do the fighting who will stand and say the victory was worth the sacrifice?

A bigger budget does not a better movie make!

2007-05-23T19:14:00.000+12:45

I saw the original with a mate on DVD. It was tense and tight, if a bit gory at the in parts, but a little bit of blood never bothered me. So I decided to see the sequel, “28 Weeks Later”.

It had the gore all right; in bucket loads. But I had a real bad feeling when they introduced the cute, but oh so stupid kids. To call them stupid is kind. They were more than stupid. They were more than morons. In fact they should have been weeded out long before they reached an age when they could do anything by themselves. But Darwinian selection sometimes takes time.

So they had the opportunity to exercise their stupidity with the predictable results. And that is what I detested about the film. Despite the massive increase in budget, it was oh so predictable. Perhaps the only redeeming feature is that all the morons in film finally meet their predictable but gory end. I hope this means there will be no sequel!

My rating: 1/5.

Blood feud

2007-05-19T18:16:00.001+12:45

I see the civil war erupting in Gaza. Two factions of the same race trying to kill each other. Why the conflict? It is not about truth or justice, it is about power. It is about whom will control a small patch of earth. Yet it is more than control of some overpopulated piece of earth. It is about the destiny of a people, and who will control it.

Seeing the killings, the shootings, the hatred I wonder. Will the eventual winner of this conflict achieve their aims? Or will they be the cause of yet more pain, more suffering, more loss. I suspect the later. In the land that God loves the cycle of violence never ends. It is either Palestinian killing Jew, or Jew killing Palestinian, or Palestinian killing Palestinian.

The blood feud continues with no end in sight.

Blood Feud

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,
You are the pointer to peace,
Why is your legacy death, pain and violence?

O Israel,
You are to be a light to the world
A place where the Gentiles gather
To meet God
Why is there darkness?

I mourn for you.
There is grief in my spirit
Blood runs in your streams where sweet and pure water should flow.

Oh Israel, land of my father Abraham
When shall the song of peace be sung?
I have no desire to tread your streets
Till the prince of peace
In glory reigns

Vanishing Point

2007-05-09T20:47:00.000+12:45

If I could hold
Onto the memories as if
They were today
Then they would be
Like some exhibition
Hanging upon a gallery wall

But memories
Are vanishing
They hold onto what was present
Then dance into the future finding
Some new meaning with each retelling

They disappear like
A ship receding across the horizon
They are part of us
Yet no more

Such is the song of memories
Do not cling too long
Lest they die a lingering death

Move on to the next
For this is what life is about
Not the past – though it clings to us still
But the moment
Rich and full
Embrace it then
Move on

De je vu

2007-05-02T19:16:00.000+12:45

I had one of those de je vu moments tonight. It was while watching the news and a sound bite of Pastor Peter Mortlock of City Impact Church appeared (who supports smacking of children and a right of parents). In it Pastor Mortlock was recorded as saying that smacking had to hurt.

And while watching it I was taken back to the church I grew up in. There was one of the psychopaths masquarading as a minister of Christ giving yet another child rearing sermon. Out would come "foolishness is bound up in the heart of the child and the rod of correction will drive it far from them". If a parent did not apply corporal punishment to their children then they were failing in their responsibilities before God to bring their children up in the "fear and admonishion of the Lord."

I look around and see all these young children lying down. One would make a noise, drop its toy, or in some way interfere with the solemnity of the service. Then the child would be marched out by one of its parents, to the ill named "mothers room". There was fear in the child's eyes for they knew what was going to happen. They would cry, they would wimper, and would try to run away, but there was no escape. And even behind the closed you could hear their cry as the blows landed.

This though was not child abuse, but correction for no bruises were formed. Children were to be seen and not heard, they were to be respectful, they were to fear and obey. And oh how they learned fear, until they grew up. Then they became angry, wilful, disobedient. They became the very thing that corporal punishment was suppose to prevent.

Yes I still remember even decades later.

Pebbles

2007-04-30T19:33:00.000+12:45

In the quiet place
I searched for your voice
If only I could find it
All would be well

Yet all I heard was silence
And the echoes of my thoughts
Bouncing like a pebble to and thro

Where are you I ask
What is this game
Of hide and seek that we play

I hear a voice
Is it mine or yours
I should know by now
Be able to sift through and find
The gold amongst the sand

But in all my sifting
I find nothing but pebbles

Post modern is what I am

2007-04-25T19:02:00.000+12:45

Well this is me: an emergent post modern: You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don't think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this.

Glad I didn't turn out a fundementalist, since I left that behind years ago. My lowest rating was for Catholic so no mitres, or smoke and holy water for me any time soon. so in this I join my other post moderns search for the meaning of life and faith in a fragmentented world which makes no sense to anyone except the most uncritical.

Request for flat/bedset

2007-04-23T19:26:00.000+12:45

If anyone knows of a flat or bedsit that is going free let me know. The bro of a friend of mine is looking for one.

The new indulgences

2007-04-18T19:28:00.000+12:45

I’ve just watched the film of the life of Martin Luther. It was a courageous attempt to capture the essence of one of the most controversial and influential figures in history. Yet such is the complexity of the man and the times he lived in that all we got was a pale shadow. Is it possible for a film to do just to someone who is larger than life. Indeed the times he lived in were larger than life. I suspect not.

After watching the film one thing which stood out for me was the question of selling indulgences. Within the pre-reformation Catholic church, the purchaser of an indulgence was granted remission of the temporal punishment of sins, thus forgoing in part or in whole the period spent in purgatory. Abuses in the sale of indulgences were one of the key motivations for Luther’s reforms. Luther and his heirs rejected totally the sale of indulgences arguing that salvation is by grace alone.

However I perceive that indulgences are slipping into the church again, but in different clothes. I saw the sale of the new indulgences while channel grazing last night. I flicked across to TBN to see one of the high priestesses of Pentecostalism preaching to motivate viewers to give money to support TBN. Her argument and the argument of the preachers who followed her was that this year, the year of 2007 is a special year of anointing, with the “7” in 2007 of special significance. In order to fully enter into this year and bring prophecies of blessing to pass, viewers were encouraged to give 10 instalments of $77 ($777), or 10 of $777 ($7777). These contributions were not, according to Paula White, buying God’s favour but seed sown in faith which God would receive then bring to pass the prophecies he had given to individuals.

I found the promises of blessings and an inheritance following the payment of money to TBN eerily similar to the promises of blessings that would follow the purchase of an indulgences. The elaborate arguments given in support of the new indulgences were a twisting of scripture. God’s favour is a free gift; it can’t be bought. To confuse giving with the hope of receiving with the grace of God which is a free gift is heresy. It is not a new heresy. In the book of Acts we have the example of Simon the Magician who attempted to purchase God’s favour with money. Peter’s answer to Simon should be a warning to the church in this age:

“May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain God’s gift with money.”

New Season

2007-04-15T17:33:00.000+12:45

Yesterday was the start of the new season. Unlike previous seasons it has slipped up on me so I was not in the best shape I have been, and it showed. Halfway through my legs died (but the rest of the team was in the same boat). Still I survived, a bit stiff and sore, and we weathered late onslaught to escape with a 1-1 draw.

Next week I should feel better. The first game is always a bit rough on the body, and each year it gets harder. But still I turn out. There must be something in one of my genes that requires me to inflict this pain on myself.

Fact or fiction

2007-04-09T12:07:00.000+12:45

Easter Sunday is the day Christians remember a major event in their calendar, the resurrection of Jesus. Yet for most New Zealanders it is just another Sunday, with the promise of a day off work on Monday. The main image of Easter is the Easter bunny and Easter eggs, both of which have their origins in pagan fertility rites.

Even for some Christians the Easter message is not to be taken seriously. These are the liberals, such as Lloyd Geering who hold that Easter, like much of the traditional Christianity is founded in myth. Geering, echoing the demythologising theology of Bultmann, argues that it is no longer possible to believe in a supernatural worldview, given recent developments in science and technology. Easter is a metaphor, and the resurrection merely to be understood as spiritual not literal. Another prominent liberal, bishop John Shelby Spong has argued that Jesus is resurrected only in the sense that his memory has been passed down to new generations of followers, each interpreting the Easter message in light of their own particular circumstances.

Evangelicals, though, hold to the literal interpretation of Easter. Jesus is not an “everyone” who can be cast in our own image. He is not some feel good wise man who told some interesting stories along the way to an untimely end. He is literally the risen Son of God. He is both fully God and fully man. It is his death on the cross and his resurrection three days later that gives us hope, for if there was no resurrection all of us are lost in our sins.

The apostle Paul said of his generation that the cross and what it represents would be foolishness to some and offensive to others. The same holds true today. The idea that Jesus had to die, so that God could reconcile his creation to himself is repugnant to many. I too find it harsh, and would prefer a softer less violent way. But the message of the cross is harsh, for it has to do with the consequences of sin. Sin tears apart, it destroys, it kills. Sin leads to separation between man and God, and only God can repair the breech by coming to earth as man and paying the price for man. There was no other way. This is the true message of Easter.

Repeal of S59

2007-03-27T22:31:00.000+12:45

I will my put my hand up and declare that I support repeal of S59 of the criminal justice act. There are a number of reasons why I agree with repeal of S59 some of which I will outline below.

In my brief time in my current job I have been amazed by the levels of childhood abuse suffered by many of the clients of the mental health service. This abuse has contributed in no small way to some of the behavioural issues that lead them to coming into contact with mental health services. Whilst many parents do not fall into the category of abusive, sadly there is a very large number who do and repeal of S59 will no longer provide any legal defence for the perpetrators of such abuse.

I also grew up in a church that perpetuated the notion that there was a biblical injunction for parents to physically correct their children. Scriptures such as “foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child and the rod of correction will drive it far from them” were used ad infinitum. The cultural context of these scriptures was never taken into account; as a result physical punishment was often used as a first resort. Consequently, the relationship between parents and their children was one of fear and mistrust.

To disagree with the use of physical force is not the same as arguing for a laissez-faire approach to child rearing. Appropriate boundaries are important. The key question is whether the use of physical force is the best way to teaching and enforcing those boundaries.

Some may argue that since I don’t have children of my own I am not qualified to comment on the use of physical punishment in child rearing. To that I provide two answers in reply. Firstly as noted above I grew up in a church that heavily emphasised the use of physical punishment and witnessed first hand the damage this approach caused. Secondly, while I don’t have children, my sister has two. In rearing her kids she did not use any form of physical punishment and they grew up to be well adjusted members of society. Her children were not special in any way, nor were they naturally well behaved. Their behaviour could be as challenging as any child I know. A combiniation of firm boundaries and consistency rather "smacking" achieved good results with her children.

Do airheads go to heaven?

2007-03-16T23:52:00.000+13:45

This musing was stimulated by Mark’s metaphysical obscenities .

The idea of George Bush going to heaven while Ghandi doesn’t is, to my way of thinking, unjust. After all Gandhi freed his country from British rule through peaceful means. This same Ghandi was also the inspiration for the civil rights movement in the United States. Without Ghandi there would be no Martin Luther King and no “I have a dream” speech.

George Bush on the other hand launched a disastrous war in Iraq under the delusional justification that the country was a massive storehouse of WMDs. Having found no WMDs the Dubba continues to justify his failed policies on the basis of an ill defined terrorist threat.

The Dubba is, by all accounts, a devout “born-again” Christian, whereas Ghandi was a Hindu. Orthodox Christian theology says that Jesus is the only way to heaven. Therefore the Dubba, who is responsible for the violent deaths of tens of thousands of people, many of whom were innocent civilians, will end up in heaven. Ghandi however will end up in hell.

And it gets worse. Imagine living in a country occupied solely by airheads like the Dubba. Furthermore imagine that you will have to spend eternity with such people. Such appears to be my fate since I too am a "born-again" Christian. The mere thought of it is enough to make me want to head downstairs.

For Jared

2007-03-15T19:07:00.000+13:45

ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory? *
WITNESS: I forget.
ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you
forgot?
__________________________________________________

ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that
morning?
WITNESS: He said, "Where am I, Cathy?"
ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you?
WITNESS: My name is Susan.
_________________________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Do you know if your daughter has ever been involved in voodoo?
WITNESS: We both do.
ATTORNEY: Voodoo?
WITNESS: We do.
ATTORNEY: You do?
WITNESS: Yes, voodoo.
_______________________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his
sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?
_______________________________________________________

ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the twenty-year-old, how old is he?
WITNESS: Uh, he's twenty-one...
_______________________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?
WITNESS: Would you repeat the question?
_______________________________________________________

ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time?
WITNESS: Uh....
_______________________________________________________

ATTORNEY: She had three children, right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None.
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
__________________________________________________

ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?
WITNESS: By death.
ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?
________________________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?
WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard.
ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?
________________________________________________________

ATTORNEY : Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition

notice which I sent to your attorney?
WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.
________________________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead
people?
WITNESS: All my autopsies are performed on dead people.
________________________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.
ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
WITNESS: No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was doing an
autopsy on him!
________________________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
WITNESS: Huh?
________________________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a
pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure ?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you
began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: But could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and
practicing law.

2007-03-13T00:25:00.000+13:45

The recent few weeks has been interesting time for me. I’ve started a new job. I’ve been to the “sunny” Hawke’s Bay to share in the wedding of couple of friends of mine and almost got rained out of the camping ground. On the way back from the said wedding I had an interesting conversation about. I went to a part of the Botanic Gardens I’ve never been to before to celebrate the birthday of another friend of mine. Then there was yet another engagement announcement (I foolishly thought that the marriage of C & K would be the last for a while, forgetting all about Yomcat and Melissa).

A lot of good things have been happening. I’ve seen God’s hand at work blessing the lives of those that I feel close to. It’s been fun to be a part of. Yet in the midst of all the good things I’ve felt oddly disconnected.

It is indeed strange to be feeling this way. Yet feel it I do. It is like there are two people living in the same body. The first is planted in this beautiful garden. There are all manner of shrubs and trees around me. I can smell the freshness of the breeze. I can feel the gentle warmth of the sun on my face. It is a good place to be.

Then there is the other me. The one that is parched and dry. The one planted in the midst of a desert from which there is no escape. I’ve been in this desert too long; the years have passed by, and the years stretch before me. In this desert I’ve come face to face with disappointment and loss. It is the place where dreams have died.

Which is the true me? The truth is they both are. No matter how good this life is there is always the sense that there is more. As the writer of Ecclesiastes said “he has set eternity in the hearts of men”. With this the sense of eternity there is also the awareness of my own mortality and the realization that no matter how many dreams are fulfilled there will always be more.

What then should I do in this conflict between eternity and mortality; should I give up hoping, dreaming and striving? To do so would be to give up on love, and beauty. The answer is to embrace life in all its fullness. For in the struggle God will be found.

The Desolate Land

In the desolate land you have found me
I called for you
Hoping for your presence
I have asked the hard questions
Here I wait for your reply

All day long I have cried
With dry and rasping voice
Is the desert my home?
Is this to be my abode until the end of my days?
Have you cast me off to wander this parched land?
Far from all that I hold dear

Remember me I pray
In the hidden place
Where my heart has been laid bare
I lift my hands to you
They are empty; there is nothing to give

Where are the promises; how much longer must I wait
Are they but false dreams
The lies of a deceitful heart

Truth is what I desire
Not the smooth words of a lying tongue
Truth which uncovers all
Do not let me languish here a moment longer

Remove this cup of bitterness from me
And heal the brokenness of my heart
Heal me from all that brings me low
Raise me up to a new life
Where I will find your favour blessing
And know the goodness of your grace

Depart from me O workers of iniquity
Who seek to take my life
And thwart the ways of the Lord
You have neither part nor parcel with me
The Lord’s ways are good
He has surrounded me with his presence
His promises are sure; they stand the test of time

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem

2007-03-05T20:26:00.000+13:45

Between weddings, work and eating I went to an interesting presentation by Christina Gibb, a member of a Christian Peace Team who had just returned from Israel. The Christian Peace team is an ecumenical group which has grown out of the pacifist movement in the Quaker and Mennonite traditions. They came to the attention of NZ media last year when a NZ member of one of the teams working in Iraq was kidnapped with three others.

Christina had been working with the Palestinians observing the situation in the West Bank. Given that she was working and living with Palestinians in the West Bank the presentation was less than objective. Even so the picture presented by Christina is of a group that has been subject to a number of abuses at the hands of both the Israeli military, as well as extremist settlers.

Life for the Palestinians in the West Bank is hard. They are subject to having land confiscated, roads and fields bulldozed, fences built cutting off contact between different villages, and armed servicemen invading their homes at any given point in time. Many of these actions appear to me to be excessive serving only to exacerbate a sense of injustice and grievance. Such feelings have provided fertile ground for the growth of extremism.

Yest I can understand why the the Israelis act in such a manner. For the Israelis security is everything, with good reason. They have lived for decades with the threat of invasion, having fought a number of wars of survival. They continue to be subject to the very real threat of suicide bombings and random rocket attacks. Then there is the memory of centuries of persecution, pogroms, ending with the experience of the “Final Solution”. They are a strong and determined people who will take whatever steps they deem necessary to protect themselves from threats both real and imagined.

Israel is not going to disappear any time soon. Neither are the Palestinians. As long as there is a sense of injustice on the one hand and a feeling of insecurity on the other violence is inevitable.

Is there a way out of this? Yes there is, but the way is far from easy. It is the way of repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation. This is the roadmap for peace. But who has the will to follow it?

Let's have a party

2007-02-27T17:45:00.000+13:45

This weekend past was the wedding of my friends Kate and Chris. It was over a year in the making and thanks to these star struck lovers Telecom, Vodafone and Air NZ did very well.

But all good things come to an end or in this case a new beginning. The weather tried its hardest to spoil the party. It poured down the previous night and many arrived just in time to try and set up a tent in the deluge.

I, though, missed the fun of setting up a tent in the rain, arriving early enough to be all set up before the sky opened. Indeed I was all set up and took the opportunity to head of down the road for a bit of food in "sunny" Napier. I found a nice pub which was playing Irish music, and offered inexpensive food so I settled for a relaxing evening before returning to the campsite.

The next day the sun smiled oh so briefly. And just in time for the wedding the clouds covered the sky. But though it threatened the rain held off. And in a paddock in the Hawke’s Bay countryside K & C committed to a life together before more than 340 family and friends. It was a wonderfully relaxed occasion and a fitting start. The groom was as handsome as can be, and the bride beautiful beyond description (as all brides should be on their wedding day).

Then that night we had a celeih. It was fun to watch and fun to be a part of, even if I kept on getting lost. Alas no photos for I only have an old style camera.

To Kate, you are a blessing beyond measure. I treasure our friendship and thank God that he has shown you His favour by bringing Chris into your life.

To Chris, you bring an infectious joy wherever you go. My world is a better place by getting to know you.

To both of you I pray the richest blessing upon your life

Many years from now
When you are old and grey
When the strength of youth
Has long since passed away
May the love that you shared that day
Be but an ember compared
To the love that will burn in your hearts

The peace movement: an oxymoron

2007-02-15T20:53:00.000+13:45

Today John Howard visited Wellington. He supports a war that I oppose and there was to be a "peaceful protest". Now I've marched before for causes I've believed in. Peaceful protest is, I believe, our democratic right with the emphasis on peaceful.

My inspiration is the civil rights movement of the 1960s in which thousands of unknown heroes risked life and health, and never returned evil for evil. However there are many in the peace movement who do not believe in peaceful protest.

Up to this point none of the protests I've been on have failed to be anything other than peaceful. But tonight things where different, a whole group of protesters started kicking a car with an elderly driver inside.

Fortunately no one got hurt. But it left me disillusioned; which I shouldn't be but there is still a bit of an idealist in me who believes that you don't have to resort to violence, even low level violence against property to prove your point. To do that undermines your moral authority.

So I have severed ties with that group. I must find another way to give voice to what I see and feel. The search goes on.

The face of war

2007-02-14T16:36:00.000+13:45

In a little over a month's time the war in Iraq will click over into its fourth year. I remember four years ago marching on the streets with hundreds, or even thousands of my country men in the vain hope that somehow the calamity could be avoided, but to no avail, for the bombs fell anyway. I remember hoping, even as the bombs fell that somehow, Iraq would not fall into the abyss of anarchy and violence that it has become. Now four years on the toll continues to grow. The toll so far for the US alone is more than that which died in the Twin towers, and then there are the innocent local Iraqis and jihadis drawn by the false hope of a martyrs death and eternity in paradise.

US AND COALITION CASUALTIES

US Troop Causalities - 3,103 US troops; 98% male. 90% non-officers; 78% active duty, 13% National Guard; 74% Caucasian, 10% African-American, 11% Latino. 19% killed by non-hostile causes. 54% of US casualties were under 25 years old. 68% were from the US Army

Non-US Troop Deaths - Total 254, with 131 from the UK

US Troops Wounded - 23,279, 20% of which are serious brain or spinal injuries (total excludes psychological injuries)

US Troops with Serious Mental Health Problems 30% of US troops develop serious mental health problems within 3 to 4 months of returning home
US Military Helicopters Downed in Iraq - 57 total, at least 28 by enemy fire

IRAQI TROOPS, CIVILIANS AND OTHER CASUALTIES

Journalists killed - 93, 57 by murder and 36 by acts of war

Journalists killed by US Forces - 14

Iraqi Military and Police Casualties - 6,027

Iraqi Civilians Killed, Estimated - A UN issued report dated Sept 20, 2006 stating that Iraqi civilian causalities have been significantly under-reported. Casualties are reported at 50,000 to over 100,000, but may be much higher. Some informed estimates place Iraqi civilian causalities at over 600,000.

Iraqi Insurgents Killed, Roughly Estimated - 55,000

Non-Iraqi Contractors and Civilian Workers Killed - 459

Non-Iraqi Kidnapped - 300, including 54 killed, 147 released, 4 escaped, 6 rescued and 89 status unknown.

And behind each bland statistic lies a story of personal suffering and loss. The story is grotesque. There are many ways to die; none pretty or heroic. With modern weapons the disfigurement is often beyond description. This is the true face of war.

One small step

2007-02-11T16:54:00.000+13:45

For the last two weeks I've been on a course. It is part of the new grad programme I'm on. The best part about it was meeting up with some of the other new grads who are starting out with me; some I knew from the last three years, while others are from other parts of the country - Nelson, Palmerston North, Masterton and Wanganui.

Last Friday I caught up with a friend who is heading over to Melbourne after failing to get a job in NZ. Strange how there all this talk about the shortage of nurses yet she was not offered a position in the new grad programme. I suspect that it all comes down to funding and having the right balance of experience in each of the teams where new grads are employed. Still I hope she finds things better in Oz.

Another of my classmates also turned up. She picked up a job at Southern Cross and had just come off duty. It was good to catch up and share some stories.

Tomorrow I move into the next phase of my new job as I start my first rotation in the Team for Assertive Community Treatment. I am not too sure how this team differs from the other community teams but it should be good experience. I am looking forward to it. But I am also aware that there is so much I need to get up to speed with as well.

But I don't surf!

2007-02-04T12:41:00.000+13:45

I heard about the book. I've visited the 8tribes website. And I’ve taken the test. And apparently I belong to Raglan. Why Raglan? After all the only time I’ve been surfing was way back in the days when acne was my only source of angst and alarm.

My current preoccupation with Raglan is all due to couple of social researchers who have been doing a lot of thinking about the makeup of NZ recently. As a result of their intense circumlocutions they have concluded that we all belong to one of eight tribes. As if the usual epithets as to which group I belong to wasn’t enough. After all I thought I knew where I came from. Wasn’t my tribe Ngati Liquorice All Sorts. But its appears that I am mistaken; it is Ngati Raglan. How this is possible without ever visiting Raglan is beyond me, but then I am not a social researcher.

Along with my fellow tribesmen I am suppose to be an independent spirit who values the ability to live a life according to my own priorities. Now I consider myself to be reasonably well educated, but I am at a loss to know what this all means and what it has got to do with Raglan. Maybe there is some profound piece of insight beckoning. But it appears to be one of those bland cliches which one would expect from a Saatchi and Saatchi account manager to justify a multimillion dollar campaign that no one takes any notice of.

What next – will it be our own tartan or flag. I wonder what the Raglan flag will look like. Maybe I could approach Transit NZ about flying it on the Auckland Harbour Bridge on Waitangi Day.