re: ultrafilesdownload.com

Scam site, big time!

Do not attempt to buy Christian music from them. They don't have any music, all they do is take your money, and then proceed to debit your credit card every day!

Thanks ScamFound, wish your post had been up on 7/24!

Verified Fraudulent Website

Over the past year I gained two special friends, both whom I call 'sha'.

Sha is a contraction of the Shona word for friend, shamwari, which translates mate, pal, friend.

When used as sha by me it indicates a very close personal friend. One to whom everything I have is available.

Friendship is dictated by the emotions raised thru the relationship and both of my special shas have touched my heart, mind and spirit deeply over time.

I am privileged to call them sha. Laughter,encouragement, inspiration have I gained from them.

My support for them is a pale reflection of what I have been blessed with thru knowing them.

Life is a mix of thorns and roses, my two sha's are the sweetest smelling roses I know, and it is good.

Praise be to God, who binds up the wounds of the broken hearted and restores the spirit of the crushed!

My sha, Baber:

She is Not Just a Friend To You...


My Friend Broken and Tried

You have been Broken and Your Life Has Been Turned Upside Down.

And it is something of not of your accord,
It is because of something Random.

Something that was not you Fault,
Something that you do not believe you Deserve.

It is an Affliction.
An affliction upon another.

That Has Broken You.
That Has Deeply Hurt Your Soul.

I can see Friend,
I can see what you go Through.
I can feel what you go Through.

It is through your words alone that you have Delivered Message
You Have Delivered what troubles you so.

Have Faith that all things happen for a reason,
And Some People Come into Your Life for a Reason.

Perhaps she is sent to Help You Heal.
To Make you Strong Again.

I have spoken to her...
She will not expect anything of you friend.
She Will Only Offer you the Words and Affection that you need.

Say Glory to Our Majesty for Sending You What You May Not Even Know Of.

My friend Baber continues to write wonderful prose and poetry on his blog.

I feel my muse stirring deep within, and wonder should I attempt to write poetry again.

There are seasons for expression, and seasons for enjoying the expression of others.

The winter cold is deep in my bones and endless cups of hot coffee do not keep my body warm but my mind and spirit are cozy and comfortable with these writings and links:

Bruce, Mauberly and of course Baber.

So I am trying google + , possibly the new facebook.

If you want an invite, email me.

The winter cold has set in. Meanwhile friends in the northern hemisphere complain about the heat, heh.

Once a month now I visit a local hospital to assist the pastoral care team. A rewarding time, and the cuppa with other team members is full of surprises too.

Sorry, gentle readers, time has moved on.

Many hours spent washing the ill and the disabled, shopping and cleaning for the ones in need, bringing viaticum to the dying and the housebound, caring for my darling youngest daughter, and too many hours reading tech news and following the haxors.

Facebook allows me to show much of what inspires and infuriates me.

But always only 72%!!!

So... gentle reader I also spend much time in my car each day driving from client to client. As I drive I pray and sing. I sing along to a wonderful inspiring CD collection called Joyous Celebration.

Thanks to Pheobe who introduced me to such wonderful music.

So whats new in my life?

I have been diagnosed with osteoporosis, I am 52, feel 30 but have the bones of an 80year old.

Fortunately a medication called fosamax will deposit calcium into my bones and make my skeletal structure stronger again. X-rays in late July will show what has happened since I began the medication.

Also I have had a huge experience of spiritual warfare. Beyond my understanding but God's love continues.

Finally I know how much I am loved by God. Knowing this, all is well!

PS Thanks Baber for inspiring me to blog again.

John writes: "Now is the time to think about who you will be walking with, where you will be starting from and asking people to join you. Invite as many people to join you as you can. You can register an event on the Walk & Talk City with a Soul community page about where you will be walking. You know the time: 2-3pm wherever you are in the world!"

Related wordpress blog

agonist

Thanks Mauberly
the passing

A walk of hope around the world
On the 15th May 250,000 people from around the world will undertake a one hour walk in their neighbourhood. They will share what touches their lives and how it can make a world of a difference to others. Together we will create 1000 projects which enable a world of hope for each other by sharing one concrete action that can make the world of difference for at least one other person.

This is an opportunity to share an hour of your time in conversation with at least one other person. It is hoped that this will not only be a sacred space but that there will be some concrete action which arises which makes a difference for one other person. Together we can change the conversation of the world!

Join up Walk & Talk-City with a Soul
When you have liked this page please ask your friends to do the same. While it is one small click of a button this can start to make a difference in our world.

Long work hours stifle the muse.

The cycle of life continues with pregnancies, births, illnesses and deaths.

An awesome opus of meditations on the death of a son has crossed my path. I hope the author does get it published for a wider audience.

Gordon, Sue and Mother.
Time to remember times of yesteryear.

Gordon Moyes who crossed my path several times during my bookselling career wrote this in 2007:

These people in spite of all that had happened to them had become very able people. At my first chapel in the city of the first Thursday in February in 1979 I met a very remarkable blind lady by the name of Sue Newman. Sue was in her 20s. She was totally blind and walked with a long white cane. She also suffered very badly from epileptic seizures. However with my experience of epilepsy this was not going to be a problem. Soon we became close friends and she attended every church service each week. I remember inviting Sue to take part in services and to read from her Braille bible and then one night in July 1979 I was doing a special “Church in a Theatre” which was going to be telecast at the ABC network. I was going to interview her about her life and faith.

Sue was born blind. Her eyes which portrayed the white part of the eyeball when her eyelids were open had never been functional at all. She never blamed God for her blindness, nor did she believed she had missed out, being born blind. She said to me in that television interview I would rather be born blind than to have lost my sight because I feel I would have lost out so much more if I had gone blind later.

Sue had not missed out on much of the 20 years or so of life. She was very active in bushcraft and had worked for the Duke of Edinburgh award. She was also very active in athletics particularly running. She used to go mountain climbing in the Blue Mountains and other places and enjoyed surfing both in the pool and in the surf. She went on an expedition on one occasion through the Blue Mountains without a great deal of help. There were times when climbing a steep rock face she needed people to call out to her where to put her feet but with that help she was able to successfully scale a very forbidding cliff face. During her time she also spent a week nursing small children in a children’s home. She set herself the task of winning the Duke of Edinburgh top award and over a period of years completed all that was necessary to win her bronze award and then her silver award and finally the Governor General of Australia presented her with a gold Duke of Edinburgh award.

Eventually she went to Buckingham Palace and received a gold award from the Duke of Edinburgh himself. The Duke was greatly impressed with Sue’s courage and personal commitment to overcoming.

It was while she was with us at Wesley Mission that she joined helping some young people struggling with drug addiction in the inner city of Sydney. She worked with some of my staff in reaching young people who constantly pitied themselves and gave themselves every excuse for their abuse of drugs. She did a training course with us and was in a class that I taught every week through our Lifeline.

After that she was involved in helping latchkey children in the inner suburban areas. At the same time she did a bible college course to equip herself. Never once did sue complain about the fact that she was totally blind. In 1980 Rev Fred Nile appointed Sue as an office worker and administrator for the International year for disabled people. This was part of the excellent work that he was doing through his new organisation, “Festival of Light”. Sue used a Braille typewriter and other special equipment. She wrote the International Year for Disabled Peoples Beatitudes which were found by many to be a real blessing.

There was a great loss to us all when Sue took an epileptic seizure and died on Tuesday the 14th of July in 1981 at just 27 years of age. We held a service of remembrance for her at the chapel in the city which crowded out Wesley Chapel. A second service of Praise and Thanksgiving was held at St Andrews Cathedral where Rev Fred Nile gave the eulogy. The Festival of Lights subsequently named an award in honour of Sue, the Sue Newman Award—for services to humanity. The first winner of that received it here in Sydney. And that winner was Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Sue Newman was one of those remarkable overcomers.

I was privileged to meet Mother in 1981:

BBC Thought for the day 24/12/2010
Pope Benedict XVI

Recalling with great fondness my four-day visit to the United Kingdom last September, I am glad to have the opportunity to greet you once again, and indeed to greet listeners everywhere as we prepare to celebrate the birth of Christ.
Our thoughts turn back to a moment in history when God's chosen people, the children of Israel, were living in intense expectation.
They were waiting for the Messiah that God had promised to send, and they pictured him as a great leader who would rescue them from foreign domination and restore their freedom.
God is always faithful to his promises, but he often surprises us in the way he fulfils them.
The child that was born in Bethlehem did indeed bring liberation, but not only for the people of that time and place - he was to be the Saviour of all people throughout the world and throughout history.
And it was not a political liberation that he brought, achieved through military means: rather, Christ destroyed death for ever and restored life by means of his shameful death on the Cross.
And while he was born in poverty and obscurity, far from the centres of earthly power, he was none other than the Son of God.
Out of love for us he took upon himself our human condition, our fragility, our vulnerability, and he opened up for us the path that leads to the fullness of life, to a share in the life of God himself.
As we ponder this great mystery in our hearts this Christmas, let us give thanks to God for his goodness to us, and let us joyfully proclaim to those around us the good news that God offers us freedom from whatever weighs us down; he gives us hope, he brings us life.
Dear friends from Scotland, England, Wales and indeed every part of the English-speaking world, I want you to know that I keep all of you very much in my prayers during this Holy season.
I pray for your families, for your children, for those who are sick, and for those who are going through any form of hardship at this time.
I pray especially for the elderly and for those who are approaching the end of their days.
I ask Christ, the light of the nations, to dispel whatever darkness there may be in your lives and to grant to every one of you the grace of a peaceful and joyful Christmas.
May God bless all of you.

Peter Kemp, Solicitor of the Supreme Court of NSW blogs on the PM's comment about Julian Assange.

fuller version, "don't we know you"

OUP USA 2010 Word of the Year: Refudiate

OUP USA 2010 Word of the Year: Refudiate

Morning in America | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Morning in America | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Chris Davis writes

Morning in America

From the photograher Dean Shaddock:
This was captured as I collected my things from airport security (Detroit Metro Concourse A). I think of it as something like a Rorschach test. Is an elderly Catholic nun being frisked by a Muslim security agent the celebration of blind justice? Or is it simply an admission of absurdity?
--------
Update: So, 3+ years after I posted this image, Drudge Report appears to have ripped it off without attribution. www.flickr.com/photos/cjd/5180735394/

You went away. It should make me feel better. But I don't know how I'm going to get through"

- The Odd Passenger hattip Black Seal. thanks m8!

Oh the tangled web of spying!

Paul Keating, back in the day, prevented disclosure of the wealthy mole, who passed high-level intelligence to the Soviet Union for more than 15 years, forcing the United States to limit the information it shared with Australia. The traitor - who was never identified - started selling information to the KGB in the late 1970s.

But the 1950/60's were also a time of compromise: in 2006, Les Haylen's files were revealed to show that he took a woman who was high on ASIO's list of spy suspects, Lydia Janovski (Mokras), on a tour of parliament in December 1959.

Now, the elderly Lydia Mokras has been interviewed and features in a new spy documentary as discussed by Mark Colvin on ABC radio.

Interestingly Mark Colvin has his own part in the story

Personally, I also knew a wonderful woman in the '80's who was part of the post-Petrov affair.

Australia is a small place, everybody knows somebody, and spies are everywhere!

A Franciscan from Slovakia living in Assisi and attempting to live the life of St Francis.

Found at Dom's

Gentle reader , compare and contrast the war of generation y.