gratuitous meme _{hattip tina} Yes, I am aware of all internet traditions.
update: from 9 hits on google, now over 1000.

I subscribe to a number of daily emails including Daily Meditation for Women and Todays Turning Point. Todays Turning Point is great:
No Excuses
Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" Then I said, "Here I am! Send me."
Isaiah 6:8

An old Yiddish Proverb says, "If you don't want to do something, one excuse is as good as another." One school teacher received an apt example of that when a note arrived from the mother of an absent student. "Please excuse Jennifer for missing school," said the note. "We forgot to get the Sunday paper off the porch, and when we found it Monday, we thought it was Sunday."
Another teacher was handed a note that read: "Please excuse Lisa for being absent. She was sick and I had her shot."
When it comes to working for Christ, no excuse will do. Don't say: I don't have time, I don't have what it takes, I'm not the right person, That's not my gift, I'll do it later, I'm too shy, I don't know how, I think someone else would be better. I'm not good enough. I'm not old enough.Jesus once told a parable about those who "with one accord began to make excuses" (Luke 14:18).
Instead, just prayerfully kneel before the Lord and say: Here am I! Send me.

He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.
Benjamin Franklin

Scientists tell us that the universe is billions of years "old" with billions of stars in billions of galaxies. Latest research reported from European researchers informs us that 'they have discovered a batch of three "super-Earths" orbiting a nearby star, and two other solar systems with small planets as well. They said their findings, presented at a conference in France, suggest that Earth-like planets may be very common. "Does every single star harbour planets and, if yes, how many?" asked Michel Mayor of Switzerland's Geneva Observatory.'

From the magnitude of time and space I spiral into the human condition. There are only two real questions of magnitude: Is there a God? & Does God love us? There are only whispers of answers.

The human heart at its core is loving and caring. Seeking the good of others. A restless heart, only finding peace in God to paraphrase Augustine. Whispers found in all world religions and philosophies give one pause for thought, and an appreciation that the sunsets point towards a sunrise in the opposite direction.

I have delved deeply into marriage counselling sans partner the past years and discovered that the best counsellors have found that when they encourage people to peel back the layers of their lives, the innermost core is good and seeks the best for the other.

When I peel back the layers of the universe as is known I find a wonder and care that speaks to me of God and love.

Time is more than just linear. Life appears linear, but so much of my life has become loop-like, spiral like and circular that one cannot just claim randomness.
Things that meant a lot to me 30+ years ago have become available again, and I wonder at the meanings.

There are random occurrences of repetition and that which seemed gone and forgotten re-surfaces and sheds new light on the past.

Moments of grace and wonder abound. Plans collapse and other things, better things occur within the time frame of the previous, seemingly important or satisfying, plans.

Old habits rear their head again, and humble me. Within it all Mother Julian whispers :all will be well, all manner of thing will be well, and the universe resonates thus as well.

I am well pleased with life.

Change is good, gentle reader!
Even as I type it is a fact change is happening so fast that there is really no change. A second is a thousand years is a minute is a universe expanding, or was that just a side-swipe?

Telstra Tower aka Black Mountain Tower dominates the local landscape. Sunset above!

So I'm actually having a sunday morning sleep in for a change. And I'm thinking why is Ms 9 watching barack saying yes we can. Then I fully woke up and realised she was watching Bob de Bouwer. Heh, barry and bob both have a positive message!

"Do no harm" is the motto of many. I hope that I live up to such a motto, I know that I have to be so careful in how I participate in life. I am blessed with faith, and know that the Almighty has blessed me in so many ways. Ways that I do not fully understand at present. I know the human condition, and that so much is mystery, a painful mystery, a lonely mystery and yet there is a peace that surpasses understanding. Hurrah for life!

Michael Collins has An Exclusive Interview with Bush Political Prisoner Susan Lindauer.
background from 2004 here

Democracy is alive, just, whew...

Social Networking for WYD2008.

I just love the moments of serendipity and synchronicity in every day.
Personally reflecting on understanding and compassion during the morning, a lunch time customer tells me unsolicited that "forgiveness leads to understanding or is it understanding leads to forgiveness." Sounds like thich to me... :)

I have spent some time gazing at the latest infrared imagery of the galaxy, and contemplating that the latest data would indicate over 135 billion galaxys in the known universe.

Such ponderings, naturally make one feel more than small, and raise the eternal questions of who am I, why am I here, what's it all about...

Descarte solved it philosophically for a while: cogito ergo sum, but modernity probably says it better: I believe, therefore I am human. Belief in ones identity enables one to survive.

Too often ones identity is seen as black or white. But Ratzinger in Introduction to Christianity reflects that

The beautiful black and white into which one is accustomed to divide men changes into the grey of a universal twilight. It becomes clear that with men there is no such thing as black and white, and that in spite of all possible gradations, which do in fact span a wide range, nevertheless all men stand somewhere in the twilight.

To really live in the twilight is to fully appreciate our brutishness to others, and our loving to others, to really appreciate the brutality of others, and to accept the loving of others.

I find peace in knowing that I am loved by some who have seen my imperfections, impatience, insecurities, resentments and frustrations. When we know others accept us unconditionally ones restlessness is sated, and even more so when one comes to realise that God's love and mercy is even greater, beyond the universe.

Dendy does it again, earlier in the year the projection bulb kept blowing, now this time the projectionist puts some foreign flick on, ten minutes later Then She Found Me begins, but the projectionist has the wrong soundtrack playing... aaarrghhhh....



fortunately the trailer explains the movie fairly well.

the angst ridden colin single betrayed Dad works for me, and my long time love affair with bette continues... the woes of relationship are well explained but the last three minutes of the movie seemed to lack continuity... a deep and meaningful dialogue between Helen and Colin, then quick cut to Helens adoptive bros apartment, then a lingering interaction between Helen and her chinese child..

Could it be that Dendy skipped some scenes as the movie was over time and the long snake of young things waiting to watch sex in the city were getting impatient?

hattip Raja
As for lasting happiness, divorce happens in all kinds of unions – in marriages to the man of your dreams and to Mr. Okay. It can be as mysterious as love in some ways.
..... nothing is perfect: not men, not marriage and not life.

streams of consciousness from The Way of the DreamCatcher - my man Robert Lax, a m8 of my m8 Merton ;)

on the state of calmness
important for good living
when you are relaxed
you can listen more,
hear all the voices,
dream more too,
that way you make the right choices
and can form a better plan for living.

"What should I do?" asked the wind.
And the voice said, Blow, blow, blow."
"What should I do?" asked the river.
And the voice said, Flow, flow, flow.

What I really need, what is essential:
Simply the grace and peace of heaven, anything more just seems to get in the way.

Bob lived out his final days on Patmos - AWESOME!

light bearer lyrics

Try not to get worried, try not to turn on to
Problems that upset you, oh.
Don't you know
Everything's alright, yes, everything's fine.
And we want you to sleep well tonight.
Let the world turn without you tonight.
If we try, we'll get by, so forget all about us tonight

APOSTLES' WIVES

Everything's alright, yes, everything's alright, yes.

MARY MAGDALENE

Sleep and I shall soothe you, calm you, and anoint you.
Myrrh for your hot forehead, oh.
Then you'll feel
Everything's alright, yes, everything's fine.
And it's cool, and the ointment's sweet
For the fire in your head and feet.
Close your eyes, close your eyes
And relax, think of nothing tonight.

APOSTLES' WIVES

Everything's alright, yes, everything's alright, yes.

JUDAS

Woman your fine ointment, brand new and expensive
Should have been saved for the poor.
Why has it been wasted? We could have raised maybe
Three hundred silver pieces or more.
People who are hungry, people who are starving
They matter more than your feet and hair!

MARY MAGDALENE

Try not to get worried, try not to turn on to
Problems that upset you, oh.
Don't you know

APOSTLES' WIVES and MARY

Everything's alright, yes, everything's alright, yes.

JESUS

Surely you're not saying we have the resources
To save the poor from their lot?
There will be poor always, pathetically struggling.
Look at the good things you've got.
Think while you still have me!
Move while you still see me!
You'll be lost, and you'll be sorry when I'm gone.

MARY MAGDALENE

Sleep and I shall soothe you, calm you and anoint you.
Myrrh for your hot forehead/
Then you'll feel
Everything's alright, yes, everything's fine.
And it's cool and the ointment's sweet
For the fire in your head and feet.
Close your eyes, close your eyes, and relax
Think of nothing tonight.

APOSTLES' WIVES

Everything's alright, yes, everything's alright, yes.

MARY MAGDALENE

Close your eyes, close your eyes, and relax

This dialogue from 2006, still makes me smile, especially now that places are selling

. I
Queanbeyan tees around Canberra

tfisb said...
Ah Queanbeyan

tfisb said...
I remember it well. The oil stained concrete, the smell of poorly maintained gas lines, the roar of engines being tuned by a thousand motorheads on a Sunday afternoon. I bought my first Nirvana tape in a near-empty mall by the creek downtown. The one with the baby grasping for a dollar note hung on a fish hook.

mdw said...
Nevermind I do believe it is titled.
mdw

Show Your Spirit WYD 2008
World Youth Day in Canberra 2008

Stories of Inspiration, humour, life and cleanliness #6891

Voided Warranty--How Roomba Treated Me

Tweety summarises Ron Rolheiser well:

There is a popular theme within Christian apologetics that goes something like this: Christianity is the most hated of all religions and that is a certain proof of its truth. The logic works this way: If we are so unfairly hated, we must be doing something right. Truth and innocence draw hatred. Jesus was hated, and so are we!

We need to be careful with that because, among other things, today, thanks to certain radical fundamentalists claiming to be Muslim, Islam is probably the most hated of all religions, and hated not because of what is true and best inside of it. Not only innocence and truth draw hatred. Being hated is not always a good sign or an indication that you (alone among the unfaithful) are holding to the real truth. It may be that you have made a vow of alienation rather than of love. Both eventually make you hated.

Being hated is only a criterion of carrying the truth if you have made a vow of love. Jesus wasn’t trying to be divisive and unpopular, he was trying to speak his truth in ways that precisely didn’t alienate and didn’t provoke hatred. But that isn’t always possible. He was trying to love others, purely and in the truth, but it eventually made him an object of hatred.

That isn’t surprising.

There is a certain proclivity within human nature to hate innocence and goodness. We see this illustrated in many books and movies. Notice how in so many stories that depict the struggle between good and evil, invariably, the bad will eventually train its sights on and fixate on what is its opposite, innocence and goodness. In most every dramatic epic, eventually the guns of the bad guys will end up trained upon the most innocent and loving person in town. It’s the saint who invariably bears the brunt of wound and hurt inside of a community. It is the saint who eventually is the scapegoat. It happened to Jesus. It happens to all goodness; by its stripes we are healed.

Why?

Because such is the anatomy of hatred. Hatred is a perverse form of love, love’s grief. It’s what love becomes when, because of wound and circumstance, it cannot be warm and reciprocal. Rollo May once famously stated that hatred is not the opposite of love. Indifference is. Hatred might instead be described as cold, wounded, frustrated, and grieving love, love gone sour. You can’t conjure-up a powerful hatred for someone unless at some level you first love him or her. When love is wounded and frustrated, the tears it provokes can be warm and cleansing, but they can also be bitter and cold. Cold grief. Hatred with its children, jealousy, bitterness, murderous feelings.

That’s part of the anatomy of love and that’s why love can so quickly turn into hatred and why most murders are domestic. When love breaks down what follows is rarely indifference (a parting in good friendship). What follows is often hatred, bitterness, coldness. Affairs mostly grow sour, not indifferent, and the same is, sadly, true of love in almost all its aspects.

What’s to be learned from this?

That hatred needs to be understood, whether it’s at a personal level or at the level of whole civilizations hating each other. Hatred is not the opposite of love. It is a perverse form of love, cold grief, bitter disaffection, that needs not to be met in kind, with a reciprocal form of coldness, but with warmth and forgiveness, tough as these are in the face of their opposite.

One of the great moral struggles of our lives lies precisely in this. When people hate us what spontaneous feeling rise within us? Feelings of coldness and anger, along with the wish, secret and not-so-secret, that their lives will go badly and that, in the ensuing misery, they will be forced to see their error and have to swallow against their will the fact that they are wrong, particularly about us. Hatred wants the other to choke on his or her own error.

But none of that will be productive for those who hate us, or for ourselves. Only if good things begin to happen in the lives of those who hate us, only if they feel the warmth of love and blessing, can their hearts let go of the bitterness, jealousy, and hatred that’s there. Hearts don’t thaw out inside of bitterness and jealousy. They break. It’s not when people are bitter that they admit the error of their ways and the unfairness of their hatred. Hearts begin to see how wrong their hatred is only when the very object of their jealousy and hatred is itself strong enough to not give back in kind, but instead to absorb the hatred for what it is, wounded love, love gone cold when it would want to be warm.

Leo Tolstoy once said: "There is only one way to put an end to evil, and that is to do good for evil."

RONROLHEISER

from back in the day _{Pastor Wright at the opening of the Kansas City House of Reps. (hattip LS)} A prayer that should be mandatory:

Heavenly Father, we come before you to ask your forgiveness. We seek your direction and your guidance. We know your word says, "Woe to those who call evil good." But that's what we've done.

We've lost our spiritual equilibrium. We have inverted our values. We have ridiculed the absolute truth of your word in the name of moral pluralism. We have worshiped other gods and called it multiculturalism.

We have endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle.

We've exploited the poor and called it a lottery. We've neglected the needy and called it self-preservation. We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare. In the name of choice, we have killed our unborn. In the name of right to life, we have killed abortionists.

We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self-esteem. We have abused power and called it political savvy. We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it taxes. We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression. We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.

Search us, oh, God, and know our hearts today. Try us. Show us any wickedness within us. Cleanse us from every sin and set us free. Guide and bless these men and women who have been sent here by the people of the State of Kansas, and that they have been ordained by you to govern this great state.

Grant them your wisdom to rule. May their decisions direct us to the center of your will. And, as we continue our prayer and as we come in out of the fog, give us clear minds to accomplish our goals as we begin this Legislature. For we pray in Jesus' name, Amen.