January 2012
4 posts
6 tags
Flowers and Chocolate
A cute young woman rang our doorbell just as we’d got the kids into bed and eaten dinner. She looked familiar and I panicked thinking she might propose to me or something.
She said, “My dad and I wanted to thank you for your help with Nelson last night. We were in our pyjamas when he got out and were so worried. I’m sorry he jumped on your kids. Thank you for helping us.”...
Cold Shower Experiment
I just took a cold shower. I think I’ve taken fewer than five warm showers this year. The rest have been all cold, using no hot water.
Why? Because I decided to try to take one cold shower every day for seven days. I wanted to observe the emotional reaction, the flinch, as I got into the shower. The challenge of starting something in the face of fear is harder than finishing this thing. I...
“When God provides more money we often think, This is a blessing. Yes, but it...”
– Randy Alcorn via http://www.moneyhelpforchristians.com/how-your-income-is-a-burden-and-not-just-a-blessing/
Magnetic Mercy
“A Footnote To All Prayers”
He whom I bow to only knows to whom I bow When I attempt the ineffable Name, murmuring Thou, And dream of Pheidian fancies and embrace in heart Symbols (I know) which cannot be the thing Thou art. Thus always, taken at their word, all prayers blaspheme Worshipping with frail images a folk-lore dream, And all men in their praying, self-deceived, address...
December 2011
8 posts
tumblrbot asked: ROBOTS OR DINOSAURS?
2 tags
Give the gift of farm this X-mas or anytime →
2 tags
Mi (Volvo-paper) Wallet →
For X-mas I got a unique wallet, made of one sheet of newspaper. Mine is a page primarily showing a Volvo ad. Perhaps my friends know I used to drive a ‘77 Volvo nicknamed Chick Magnet.
2 tags
The Christmas Story, kids in New Zilland →
We watched this in home church.
X-mas
Yesterday, we were coming home from Ella and Noah’s preschool X-mas party at a public park. Santa came for the last half hour and hugged kids and stuff. I wasn’t paying much attention.
In the car, Ella said, “Mom, Dad, why was Santa so skinny?” I said, “Well, I think Santa’s used to the North Pole where it’s really cold and he got hot today and melted...
9 tags
Contradiction
I suspect many people who avoid a deeper faith just assume that faith is merely about consolation. But then why believe when life is especially tough? Why maintain one’s integrity when there is no profit from it?
Earlier tonight I read some words that seemed so pure and true I printed them off. I keep re-reading the blog post. I decided I wanted to link others to the message shared.
The...
Unseen Truth
Your life is hard. And so is mine. I look around and even though I see here
and there things worth rejoicing about, even those things seem to be
overshadowed by things worth crying about or fighting against. I’ve heard
or felt many an unbeliever say, “Stick with reality mate; forget these
fantasies about a better world off in the distance; eat the $@%# life
you’re stuck with...
3 tags
“If you can’t fail, it doesn’t count.”
– Seth Godin
November 2011
8 posts
3 tags
“The writer shapes story around a perception of what’s worth living for and...”
– Robert McKee, author of Story. I got the quote from here.
3 tags
Ella's Favorite Song to Dance to →
1 tag
“I don’t owe it to myself … to take care of my own needs. I owe it to...”
5 tags
“We are a people who, at the click of a mouse, can have everything we could...”
– Jason Locy, Veneer
3 tags
“Both singleness and marriage are necessary symbolic institutions for the...”
– Stanley Hauerwas
1 tag
“What happens when everything you believe in and live by is smashed to bits by...”
– Eugene Peterson, commentary on Jeremiah
October 2011
10 posts
9 tags
A Prayer to Practise Heaven on Earth
God, let each of us be encouraged and to be encouragers in our walk today.
Thank you for the texts, the coffees, and meals shared by [my close friends], for the spiritual input they give my life through the display of Jesus in their living of love, joy, and peace toward others and toward me.
Thank you for this city which has challenged each of us beyond what we thought we could sustain. We...
3 tags
Opinion or Conviction
I think I often believe I’m living with conviction when really I’m just opinionated.
I believe beautiful thinks like that God is love and people should be free.
Yet I occasionally feel frustrated and realise it’s because I’m wishing other people to please me or wishing to please other people.
Perhaps my actions aren’t in direct opposition to my beliefs, but I think...
Peace Maker in the House
”The Lord desires to be in His holy temple, wherever YOU are.” – A.W. Tozer
I like that quote. I believe God desires to fill the personal temple and the cosmic temple, all in all. But He doesn’t force His way in. In Jesus, God’s entered the temple in a surprising way.
All true peace makers are controversial. I suppose that’s either an irony or a paradox.
I...
6 tags
2 tags
5 tags
Cow's Bottom
Almost every night at Ella’s bedtime I ask her what she’s thankful for that day. We take turns. She says something she’s thankful for and then I go and so on. She holds a small pad of paper and pen and “writes” these things down.
Monday she and Noah and Nicole went to an urban farm with friends, Luz and Romina. They got to milk a cow and crack a whip among other...
7 tags
Frustration Maturation
Well, yesterday I felt like a conquered. It was no new feeling, but it was a feeling of newness, like it was the first day of the rest of my life.
I think you know what I’m talking about.
And today was an inward trip of gradual frustration.
There wasn’t as big, seemingly, of a pay off. In fact, I encountered some parts of my life today that were less negative when I felt like I...
To Done
And then today I hit the ground running.
Ella climbed into bed with the iPad, watching interesting videos. I started watching them with her like an addict and even reaching over her to pick the ones I wanted.
I suddenly remembered my vow.
I looked away.
I looked back at the babies laughing on the screen.
I looked away, I looked back, repeat.
I got up and really hit the ground running.
I...
3 tags
Nothing on YouTube
Last night, the incessant sound of mouse clicking was trying to get through to me.
Finally, it did.
“Man, there’s just nothing on YouTube.”
I was suddenly sort of sick at myself. I suddenly felt I’d been wasting years of my life in just one night.
Almost immediately, but not quite, I decided to quit.
And then, after about twenty more clicks, trying this video of a...
September 2011
5 posts
6 tags
Stages of Faith
According to How the Irish Saved Civilization:
As the Roman lands went from peace to chaos, the land of Ireland was rushing even more rapidly from chaos to peace.
So I was thinking the characters involved in this history would help illuminate the four stages of faith I’ve tried to present on this blog some time ago already.
Last Sunday at Food for Thought in the community centre I took...
7 tags
Food for Thought and Southside Festival
We have a thing in the Port Kembla Community Centre most Sundays called Food for Thought. Food for Thought is about what we can bring to life in us. For the next one I might concisely tell the story of how the Irish saved civilisation and ask what is needed for our civilisation to evolve. Or, I might save that discussion for another day. The next one is Sunday 25 September from 11 to 1pm.
But...
Seven Things to Do on 9/11
[by Craig M. Watts, a Facebook acquaintance]
THINGS TO DO ON 9/11 for PEOPLE with a CHRIST-CENTERED FAITH
(1) Recognize the great potential for evil that comes from religion that sanctions violence. Muslims don’t have a corner on the market.
(2) Be thankful for those who disregarded their own safety and willingly sacrificed their lives for the sake of those who were endangered and for...
Paying Attention to
I want to pay attention to what’s good.
Life blows by so swiftly. It’s so easy to get my eyes locked on a scene that I don’t want to see repeated. Yet I stare at it. And I feel reaction welling up inside me. And then there it is again.
Okay that’s too abstract. Here’s what I’m talking about. My daughter threw at least a couple fits this morning while...
2 tags
the turtle speaks: Cutting back on TV is like... →
lukehartman:
Cutting back on TV is like cutting back on soda (or high-sugar of any kind). Once you’ve done it, even moderate amounts don’t taste good. Quote of the day:
When television is good, nothing — not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers — nothing is better.
But when television is bad,…
August 2011
2 posts
7 tags
400-Year Patience (Or More)
Thursday night, I get home from Port Parables and Ella says, as usual, “How was Port Parables, Dad? What’d you do?” I say, “Well, we read about God’s promise to Abraham [Genesis 15].” She says, “Oh, did you sing ‘Father Abraham?’” Which, as you might already know, goes like this:
Father Abraham. Had many sons [and daughters,...
“I believe in the infinite value of every life because Christ died for the least...”
July 2011
17 posts
“The traveler sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see.”
– G.K. Chesterton
(via lukehartman)
3 tags
“More marriages might survive if the partners realized that sometimes the better...”
– Doug Larson (I don’t know who this is, but I thought it was a good quote and copied off of Hal Runkel’s material at www.ScreamFree.com).
“Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard...”
– John 8:6-8, when men were using the written word in the Mosaic law to stone a woman, Jesus wrote on the ground.
1 tag
3 tags
WatchWe organised a group tree-planting a little over a year ago. This video shows what the group did after my friend and I and a few others carried cardboard and mulch down to the area for several months. See the progress from the photos we took today (July 2011). Why did we want to see this happen? Each person might answer a little differently. I, personally, believe human beings have a significant...
“ … love of neighbor … means using one’s tongue properly...”
– Scot McKnight
“Self-acceptance comes from meeting life’s challenges vigorously....”
– J. Donald Walters
“There’s never enough of what can be measured. And measurables need all...”
“… I’d thought of love as something that would complete me, make all...”
– Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years
6 tags
Cosmic Temple of God
I’ve been reading and re-reading Genesis one for nearly my whole life. I’ll probably always be affected by it in an incredibly positive way.
Something that has always struck me uncomfortably is the idea that God rested on the seventh day from the work of creating. I mean I don’t like the idea of God going on vacation for aeons while things just unravel beyond his hearing....
“There is an intrinsic feeling in nearly every person that your life could be...”
– Donald Miller, A Million Miles
3 tags
The Story
I need to feel like everything’s okay, but my need doesn’t make it so.
When I look at the world I can see it’s a good universe regardless of what I feel or need. I should never be surprised to find goodness here whether in a person of integrity or in a land of peace. But it’s never the utopia I need it to be.
What I really need to feel is distressed at this...