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I'm waiting for you. You will turn my life upside down, I want that!

It's over, except for a miracle.

I need one. But don't deserve one.

Births are for the most part wonderful.

And I'm well pleased to see some continuity here, the new curevents.org!

GIVEN UP

18 Ways to Power Search Google - Duncan Riley

Nearly everyone uses Google, but most people search Google by entering the term or word they are looking for without ever using any of Google’s built in features. Google is great as it is, but as the web gets bigger even Google, once famed for its great results, is delivering poorer results for basic search terms.

Google power users know the tricks, and they aren’t hard to pick up at all. Using Google’s built in features helps you find what you’re looking for faster, and that’s always a good thing. Here’s 18 ways to power search Google that you can use today to improve your Google experience.

# Not: adding a minus (-) allows you to narrow your search, for example if you wanted to search for New York but not City you’d enter New York -City
# Either/or. Google looks for the combination of terms you type in, but you can tell it to look for multiple words, for example Olympic or Gold. The short cut is | so Olympic | Gold works as well
# Specific Document Types use the modifier “filetype:” if you’re looking for documents or pictures, for example blogging filetype:pdf delivers pdf documents that include the word blogging.
# Quotation marks: I use this trick regularly. If you’re looking for the exact phrase, not the words entered, do your search like this “I did but see her passing by”
# Wildcard: old DOS users will remember doing directory searches using an asterisk (*) as a wildcard, and Google supports wildcard entries as well. Example: blogging *.com.au
# Definitions: stuck on a word you don’t understand? in Google, it’s as simple as define:word to deliver you a list of definitions
# Similar terms: ~ in front of a word tells Google to look for similar terms to that word, for example ~blog web 2.0
# Site Specific Search: another shortcut I use regularly. To search within a specific site, start the query with site:name.com term. Other rules can be used in the search.
# Calculator: who would have thought you could use Google as a calculator. Google supports /*-+ for a result.
# Phone Listing: Want to know who your missed call was from? type phonebook:555-555-5555 for the answer. Works primarily in the United States.
# Links: want to know who is linking to your blog, or even specific post? enter link:url.com into Google for the answer.
# Format specific search: sometimes finding what you want in Google can be difficult, but Google offers a range of format specific search sites. Google News, Blog Search, even Video are a few Google sites you can use to find what you’re looking for.
# Area Code Lookup: type in the US area code into Google to find out where the area code is.
# Movies: Get the latest movie times at your local cinema by typing movie:movie name zip.
# Stock Price: enter a valid stock symbol for the latest reported stock price, for example YHOO.
# Music: want the details of a song? use music:song name for Music specific search on Google
# Metric conversion: convert imperial measurements to metric and back again quickly via the Google search box. For example: 100 lbs in kg
# Term location: use inurl:, intitle:, intext:, or inanchor: to tell Google where it should look for the term your looking for.
# Cache: Google keeps a comprehensive cache database of many websites, and you can search this database by starting your search with cached:

Many of these features and more, including the ability to define the date rage for content, can be access via the advanced search link next to the Google search button.

Vale, Daniel, one of Canberra's special people.

A man with a beautiful voice who enunciated so well that one could imagine an angel was talking to you.

An angel with a dark side, an angel often bashed and abused.

An angel fighting demons within and self medicating so often.

'twas a privilege to care in small ways for Daniel.

Be at peace, and may the angels lead you into paradise.

Ronald Rolheiser writes again...

Some Guidelines for Service

To try to serve others is to be caught up in many tensions, some that beset from without and others that beset from within. How can we remain energized, effective, and true? Here are some guidelines for the long haul:

Be beyond ideology, be both post-liberal and post-conservative

Have an unlisted ideological number! Refuse to be pre-defined by any ideology of the left or the right. Like Jesus, transcend boundaries, constantly surprise, refuse to be classified. Don’t be liberal and don’t be conservative, be a woman or man of faith and compassion and let that take you down whatever roads it takes you, liberal or conservative.

Strive to incarnate both the kenotic and the triumphant Christ.

Don’t be afraid to be nothing and don’t be afraid to be everything! Christ emptied himself and refused to claim any status or to stand out in terms of public titles, distinctive dress, or in any triumphant display of power. But he is too the Christ who rose triumphant from the tomb and who needs to be proclaimed publicly, with color, pride, and display. He is both the Christ of silent, anonymous witness and the Christ of chanting, public processions. Honor both.

Be for the marginalized, without being marginalized yourself.

Walk a fine tightrope! Take your stand with the marginalized, even as you are known for your sanity and capacity to relate warmly and deeply to every kind of person and group. Be known for your radical stance for the poor even as you are recognized for the wide scope of your embrace.

Lead without being elitist.

Be led by the artist, but listen to the street! Be a leader, an aesthete, an artist, a creative person trying to lead others forward, even as you shun elitism of every sort and ensure that every kind of person is comfortable around you. Be a leader, but with empathy, without disdaining others’ culture, sentiment, or piety.

Be iconoclastic and pious at the same time.

Don’t be afraid to smash idols and don’t be afraid to bow in reverence! The problem is that the pious aren’t liberal and the liberals aren’t pious. Be both, one doesn’t work without the other. Great hearts hold near contradictory principles, lesser ones do not. Help smash the false gods that need to be smashed, even as you are unafraid to kneel often in reverence.

Be equally committed to social justice and to intimacy with Jesus.

Learn to be comfortable leading both a peace march and devotional prayer! Do not choose between justice and Jesus, between committing yourselves to the poor and fostering private intimacy with Jesus. Don’t choose between interiority and action. Dorothy Day didn’t. There’s a lesson there.

Be thoroughly in the world, even as you are rooted elsewhere.

Live in a tortured complexity! Love the world, love its pagan beauty, let it take your breath away, even as you root your heart in something deeper so that the realities of faith also take your breath away. Carry the tension between having a hopeless love for the world and a hopeless love for things beyond it. Love the world as you would a lover with some quirks of character and weaknesses that cause you pain. Pray a lot. Cry occasionally. Sneak off to a church as needed and walk in the sun regularly. The church has secrets worth knowing, and the world is also beautiful.

Ponder, in the biblical sense, by carrying the tension inside the community.

Eat the tension around you! Mary pondered, not by thinking deep intellectual thoughts but by holding, carrying, and transforming tension so as not to give it back in kind. Like Jesus, she helped take sin and tension away by absorbing it, like a water-filter that keeps the impurities, toxins, and dirt inside of itself and gives back only pure water. Be a tension-absorber inside all the communities wherein you live. Absorb the bitterness, the anger, the hardness, the group hysteria, the lack of reconciliation, as a water-filter might. Then drink wine with a friend to rid yourself of your own toxins.

Help incarnate a deeper maturity.

Go into dark places, but don’t sin! Stand up for the God-given freedom we enjoy, even as you model and show others how that freedom can be carried in a way that never abuses it. Like Jesus, who went into the singles-bars of his time (except he didn’t sin), walk in great freedom, go into dark places, but go there not to assert human autonomy but to take God’s light there.

Make love to the song!

Forget about yourself and how others react to you! A bad singer on stage makes love to himself; a more mature singer makes love to his audience; a really mature singer makes love to the song. Service is the same. Forget about yourself, your image, your need to prove yourself, and eventually forget about your audience too so that you and your song are not about yourself or about your people, but about God.

What will you leave to the next generation? Are you building your lives on firm foundations? Building something that will endure? The world needs this renewal. The Church also needs renewal. She needs your faith, your idealism and your generosity so that she can always be young in the spirit.

Pope Benedict, Sydney, Australia, 2008.

'Parity' with the Euro, best price around Canberra is about $1.51 Australian/litre.

For USA readers approximates to about $9.00/gallon, we can all fume together!~

Mirrorball Jesus - photo Nick Moir

THE pilgrims queueing up to have their photograph taken have named him Mirrorball Jesus, Disco Jesus or The People's Jesus. Sarah Robinson, the Sydney artist who spent seven weeks making him, prefers to call him Reflection. But everyone agrees he is one of World Youth Day's biggest celebrities. The 1.6-metre sculpture, whose surface is covered in a mosaic of mirror fragments, has become a magnet for pilgrims since it was installed near the Hyde Park fountain on Tuesday morning. They kiss him, pray to him, light candles at his feet and leave gifts, including a bunch of roses. "It's amazing to watch," says Robinson, a high school teacher who applied the mirrors by hand in her Coogee flat. "I'm finding people are having really intimate, private experiences in a very public space. They drop to their knees and pray in front of him and make the sign of the cross."

Back in 2005 I spent some time researching Scott Parkin, and used his story as part of a theology assignment, now ASIO is squirming.

Pope Benedict pauses in his homily:

"Here I would like to pause to acknowledge the shame which we have all felt as a result of the sexual abuse of minors by some clergy and religious in this country..Indeed I am deeply sorry for the pain and suffering the victims have endured and I assure them that, as their pastor, I too share in their suffering.

"These misdeeds, which constitute so grave a betrayal of trust, deserve unequivocal condemnation. They have caused great pain, they have damaged the church's witness.

"Victims should receive compassion and care, and those responsible for these evils must be brought to justice

"It is an urgent priority to promote a safer and more wholesome environment, especially for young people. In these days marked by the celebration of World Youth Day, we are reminded of how precious a treasure has been entrusted to us in our young people, and how great a part of the church's mission in this country has been dedicated to their education and care.

"As the church in Australia continues, in the spirit of the gospel, to address effectively this serious pastoral challenge, I join you in praying that this time of purification will bring about healing, reconciliation and ever-greater fidelity to the moral demands of the gospel.

It won't be enough for some, but Pope Benedict has done good. God bless him, and all victims.

Let there be rock: Benedict - Tracey writes...

SOME people have described World Youth Day events as Woodstock for Catholics, and to some degree this is true. There is usually a lot of sleeping on the ground and getting rained on while listening to music, making friends and even falling in love.

What will Pope Benedict XVI, successor of St Peter, the "vicar of Christ" and the head of the Vatican state, make of this? It is well known that when it comes to liturgy, he has no time for happy-clappy masses. He teaches that dumbing down the liturgy so that people can better relate to it is a form of apostasy, analogous to the Hebrews' worship of the golden calf.

For Pope Benedict, the liturgy is about the worship of God, not self-worship or the worship of the parish or school community. While he has nothing against building up the emotional bonds between members of a parish, he recommends that this be done at barbecues, picnics or nights at the pub, not in the middle of mass. In his pre-papal works, Benedict wrote that rock music had no place in a liturgical context, that rock concerts were pseudo-liturgies that lifted people out of themselves but gave them a counterfeit mystical experience that didn't link them to God.

In scholarly essays he compares contemporary rock music to the music of the Dionysiac cults in ancient Greece, as does the English philosopher Roger Scruton, who is not a Catholic, but shares the Pope's concerns about this musical form. Scruton argues that rock music arrests people in a state of adolescent psychological immaturity.

Some Christians, particularly evangelical Protestants, take the view that there is nothing wrong with rock music per se, just that the lyrics can be a bit crude. This has given rise to Christian rock bands that substitute biblical lyrics for explicit sexual references. Benedict and Scruton argue that there is something wrong with the form of the music itself, quite apart from the lyrics.

Critics of Benedict say he is a middle-class Bavarian snob who plays the piano, was raised on a diet of Beethoven and Mozart and needs to broaden his cultural horizons. Whatever one makes of the criticism, it is true that Benedict has had a very strong classical education with an emphasis on languages, history, literature and music and has been immersed in the world of European high culture and the great European universities.

In our postmodern times, members of generation Y tend to be open to an expansion of their own cultural horizons and find Catholic high culture fascinating. They are like children in an attic, rummaging through old boxes and finding treasures. Benedict is like a venerable grandfather who recounts the milestones in the family history and talks about things other people are too scared to mention.

In his homilies he presents youth with the historical and cultural capital they need to make sense of their place in history, including their place in the history of the church. He helps to meet their need to establish their own identity. It's impossible for them to do this if they live in a twilight zone cut free from historical moorings.

However, if Benedict is right that rock festivals are a symptom of a universal human need for an experience of self-transcendence, then the Catholic church needs to rediscover its own ways of meeting this need. Benedict's prescription is a combination of rigorous catechesis, which presents the Christian vision in its synthetic totality, with elevated liturgy, and of course, plenty of opportunities to meet other young Catholics and realise that one isn't the last surviving practising member of the church on the planet.

World Youth Day engenders a sense of belonging to something greater than oneself, of being a member of a vast universal family that transcends all national boundaries. The spiritual highs come not from drugs but from meeting people who are brothers and sisters in Christ from all over the world. Email addresses are exchanged, along with pilgrim memorabilia.

There is Christ's saying that unless we become like little children we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. In other words, you don't get in if you are sitting around like Eeyore on a bad day, bored with life and feeling sorry for yourself. While rock music might be off the agenda, at least at the official events with Benedict, there is nonetheless some common ground to be found with the spiritually lost generation of Woodstock.

While Benedict would not agree that one can find the answers blowing in the wind, he would probably empathise with the lyrics of Bob Dylan's Forever Young: May you grow up to be righteous, may you grow up to be true, may you always know the truth, and see the light surrounding you, may you always be courageous, stand upright and be strong, and may you stay forever young.

Perhaps one of the unpredictable consequences of WYD/SYD is that for a week at least we might all remember how it felt to be young and idealistic, and we might put aside our own personal psychological baggage and allow ourselves to be awed by the presence of someone who, (even if we don't think he is the successor of St Peter, or the vicar of Christ) is a person of great wisdom and warmth that transcends denominational boundaries.

Tracey Rowland is dean of the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family in Melbourne and the author of Ratzinger's Faith: The Theology of Pope Benedict XVI.

background briefing on Tracey

yEs I aGrEe:

Cardinal Pell said Australia faced two challenges.

"One is the Australian temptation to believe that you can have a good, happy life without God," he said.

"And the second challenge revolves around the concept of sexuality, marriage and family."

To keep on trying, to make the effort, to keep seeking God is not easy.
To forget to see the good and focus only on the dark side, is a cop out.

So many cop out these days.

'When truth goes forward it is often fragile and alone; falsehood on the other hand can have many helpers .' "


Frere Bartholome de las Casas

A is for anniversary, B is for blessing.

Some things are counted in days, others in months. I celebrate with a young couple whose child with neo-natal problems reaches 4 months, and also sit with a mother whose baby died at four months. I counted months, but now count the years in my own pain.

The Roman Catholic church currently begins the Jubilee year celebrating the birth of Paul the apostle two thousand years ago. Paul who counted nothing as worthwhile except knowing Jesus Christ. Paul who experienced a conversion so deep that he endured floggings, beatings, shipwrecks, imprisonment to continue preaching the good news that Jesus Christ is the answer.

The answer to our deepest longings, angst and experiental woes.
Jesus Christ the only person who can fill the earthen vessels that we are. Jesus Christ the real treasure. Not a treasure that makes us feel good for a day, a season for a number of years, but for eternity.

Paul ran the good race, and ran until he was crucified. No stranger to his own failings he knew that Jesus was the one who made him wholly whole and well. Well for eternal life. A promise he preached around the ancient Mediterranean world.

Paul knew that nothing can separate us from the love of God, made visible and Gods' proof of resurrection in Christ Jesus. The next twelve months is a time to re-engage and deepen in the understanding of God's love for each of us.

It was Paul who prayed that:
May God give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparable great power for us who believe.

and

May your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you will be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ – to the glory and praise of God.

It's never to late to meet Jesus again. To accept him as Lord and Saviour, to realise that the things of earth grow dim compared to the glory that Jesus offers.

Favourite Quotes:
But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, based on law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith; that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that if possible I may attain the resurrection of the dead

With eyes wide open to the mercies of God, I beg you, my brothers, as an act of intelligent worship, to give him your bodies, as a living sacrifice, consecrated to him and acceptable by him. Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity

and my penultimate fav:
What can separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: "For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter." Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

and thus to my #1 fav:
For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

And so gentle reader I pray with Paul that The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all. Amen.

hattip chickadee
vale George "I'm a Modern Man"
(Audio at Carlin George Carlin, November 5th, 2005
Beacon Theater, NYC

I'm a modern man.
I'm a modern man.
I'm a modern man.
I'm a modern man.

I'm a modern man,
A man for the millennium,
Digital and smoke free.

A diversified multicultural postmodern deconstructionist,
Politically anatomically and ecologically incorrect.

I've been uplinked and downloaded.
I've been inputted and outsourced.
I know the upside of downsizing.
I know the downside of upgrading.

I'm a high tech lowlife.
A cutting edge state-of-the-art bicoastal multitasker,
And I can give you a gigabyte in a nanosecond.

I'm new wave but I'm old school,
And my inner child is outward bound.

I'm a hot wired heat seeking warm hearted cool customer,
Voice activated and biodegradable.

I interface from a database,
And my database is in cyberspace,
So I'm interactive,
I'm hyperactive,
And from time-to-time,
I'm radioactive.

Behind the eight ball,
Ahead of the curve,
Riding the wave,
Dodging a bullet,
Pushing the envelope.

I'm on point,
On task,
On message,
And off drugs.
I got no need for coke and speed,
I got no urge to binge and purge.

I'm in the moment,
On the edge,
Over the top,
But under the radar.

A high concept,
Low profile,
Medium range ballistic missionary.
A street-wise smart bomb.
A top gun bottom feeder.

I wear power ties,
I tell power lies,
I take power naps,
I run victory laps.

I'm a totally ongoing bigfoot slam dunk rainmaker with a proactive outreach.
A raging workaholic.
A working ragaholic.
Out of rehab,
And in denial.

I got a personal trainer,
A personal shopper,
A personal assistant,
And a personal agenda.

You can't shut me up,
You can't dumb me down.
'Cause I'm tireless,
And I'm wireless.
I'm an alpha male on beta blockers.

I'm a non-believer and an over-achiever.
Laid back but fashion forward.

Up front,
Down home,
Low rent,
High maintenance.

Super size,
Long lasting,
High definition,
Fast acting,
Oven ready,
And built to last.

I'm a hands on,
Foot loose,
Knee jerk,
Head case.

Prematurely post traumatic,
And I have a love child who sends me hate mail.

But I'm feeling,
I'm caring,
I'm healing,
I'm sharing.
A supportive bonding nurturing primary care giver.

My output is down,
But my income is up.
I take a short position on the long bond,
And my revenue stream has its own cash flow.

I read junk mail,
I eat junk food,
I buy junk bonds,
I watch trash sports.

I'm gender specific,
Capital intensive,
User friendly,
And lactose intolerant.

I like rough sex.
I like rough sex.
I like tough love.
I use the f word in my email,
And the software on my hard drive is hard core, no soft porn.

I bought a microwave at a mini mall.
I bought a mini van in a mega store.
I eat fast food in the slow lane.

I'm toll free,
Bite sized,
Ready to wear,
And I come in all sizes.

A fully equipped,
Factory authorized,
Hospital tested,
Clinically proven,
Scientifically formulated medical miracle.

I've been pre-washed,
Pre-cooked,
Pre-heated,
Pre-screened,
Pre-approved,
Pre-packaged,
Post-dated,
Freeze-dried,
Double-wrapped,
Vacuum-packed,
And I have an unlimited broadband capacity.

I'm a rude dude,
But I'm the real deal.
Lean and mean.
Cocked, locked and ready to rock.
Rough tough and hard to bluff.

I take it slow.
I go with the flow.
I ride with the tide.
I got glide in my stride.

Drivin' and movin',
Sailin' and spinnin',
Jivin' and groovin',
Wailin' and winnin'.

I don't snooze,
So I don't lose.
I keep the pedal to the metal,
And the rubber on the road.

I party hearty,
And lunch time is crunch time.

I'm hanging in,
There ain't no doubt.
And I'm hanging tough,
Over and out.

hattip zuma

George Buttrick, a Biblical scholar, says of “offer the wicked man no resistance”: “What does such teaching mean? Our imagination recoils from it, and our everyday morality (our speedy recourse to law, for instance and our ultimate dependence on force) flatly contradicts it. Christ has in mind the injured man. Such a person’s concern for justice is never pure; it is subtly entangled with vindictiveness. Christ warns them against that revenge. Revenge is not sweet despite the proverb: it is poison, strife breeding strife in endless circle…Do our law courts and jails really satisfy the oppressed, or reclaim the oppressor? How often they confirm the oppressor in guilt, leave the injured unrequited, and thus hurt everyone! The wrongdoer must be brought to truer personhood, and that change is not wrought by retaliation. Above all Christ has God’s will in mind: He intends that the world shall be a home in which children dwell in mutual love. He is not pleading for any cowardly yielding. The children of the Kingdom must show goodwill, with no other strategy and no other ulterior motive.”

Christian reflections on the secret. I am well pleased!