yulunga

A Christmas Letter for 2011

2011-12-28T09:46:00.001-08:00

https://members.tip.net.au/~lindafrd/Christmas2011web.pdf

This is set up for printing an A5 page. So pages 4 and 1 are followed by pages 2 and 3.

Two Sermons

2011-12-23T22:57:00.001-08:00

http://www.jeanettewinterson.com/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=606

The Manchester Sermon 2010
The Temptation of Jesus
Jeanette Winterson

and

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/25/books/review/the-book-of-books-what-literature-owes-the-bible.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&smid=fb-share

The Book of Books: What Literature Owes the Bible
By MARILYNNE ROBINSON
Published: December 22, 2011

both very profound and wonderful!

worth pondering.

MS Employment report links

2011-11-14T01:51:00.001-08:00

From:
http://www.msra.org.au/plans-prevention-and-cure-ms-promise-reduction-national-budget

to view a copy of the report:
http://www.msra.org.au/files/msra/docs/Economic%20Impact%20of%20MS%20in%202010%20Full%20Report.pdf

Media Coverage

ABC Rural - 2/11/2011 - [click for link]http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/201111/s3354049.htm?site=canberra&section=news
The Hon Jenny Macklin MP media release - 2/11/2011 - [click for link] http://www.jennymacklin.fahcsia.gov.au/mediareleases/2011/Pages/eco_impact_ms_021111.aspx
Medical Search - 3/11/2011 - [click for link] http://www.medicalsearch.com.au/News/MS-prevention-plan-promises-reduction-to-national-budget-55741
Invest in Australia - 2/11/2011 [click for link] http://www.investinaustralia.com/news/new-report-highlights-economic-impact-multiple-sclerosis-34c5

two links

2011-11-13T01:58:00.001-08:00

http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/201111/s3354049.htm?site=canberra&section=news
and
http://freilich.anu.edu.au/events/herbert-valmae-freilich-foundation-annual-lecture-bigotry-and-intolerance-2011

I was interviewed on ABC local radio last week (3rd November 2011). An interesting experience! While there were questions about my employment history, the rural reporter was more interested in the effect that living in the country had on my access to health services. I have been thinking about it ever since! While I did not see a GP very much at all in my thirties, I might have done if I had been in town and not just hiding away in depression and in the country!

on the other hand, even now, I think the main effect of being out here in Burra is an unwillingness to travel into town to go to a gym or other exercise.

ALSO

last week I finally got to a Freilich Foundation annual lecture. Raimond Gaita was talking about Gay marriage. He had ideas that made me think much more than ever before. I do need to read the transcript (if it becomes available) to be more careful of the wording.

enjoy both of these links!

Jimmy Carter interview

2011-09-14T05:36:00.001-07:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/11/president-jimmy-carter-interview

This Guardian interview is well worth a look. My first memory of Jimmy Carter was his quoting of Micah 6:8 What does the Lord require of you? to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your god. ... my first introduction to that verse.

sharing Anna's blog

2011-07-19T21:17:00.001-07:00

I really must start to blog again!

In the meantime:
http://annast-odyssey.blogspot.com/
will keep you entranced.

Do check out the Faroes and other earlier posts there. Plus there is news of Tika, Anna's second guide dog. Yes, the photos here are taken so that Anna can also see what she is looking at. But they are amazing. This odyssean blog really should be published for a wider audience.

enjoy!

L

Andrew Peacock at the Library

2011-02-13T01:18:00.001-08:00

It is time I wrote something up here! My apologies. A comment berating me might be in order!

I want to share news about one of our National Treasures: The National Library. I occasionally visit and now must certainly do so, even if it is only to drink coffee! See this news article in The Canberra Times: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/early-bird-gets-the-bookworm/2072075.aspx

a larger photo of Andrew is at http://static.lifeislocal.com.au/multimedia/images/full/1108215.jpg

Animals have a way of humanising a space. Sitting in the gardens behind the National Gallery last year I almost had thornbills on my feet looking for crumbs. The bush in the sculpture garden there has attracted birds of the bush.

As I write we are visited by Blue Wrens for their last treat for the day. Earlier there were pigeons (including the one surviving youngster whom we watched in the nest until the two of them fledged and just took off); and Crimson Rosellas getting their last almonds of the day and also picking up fennel seeds that aren't yet mature. Magpies in there as well of course. Today was supposedly the day without treats from the hoomins. but now we are at home.

Floods (Burra photos)

2010-12-31T18:21:00.000-08:00

It has only been three weeks since the post about our own flood here in Burra. Now the photos.
at 5.30am on the 9th December 2010:(see the December blog entry "The Creek is roaring")

The water came over the dam wall (which is visible on this photo, but the grass has been laid flat!) and almost to the fence across the creek. I reckon that this is the highest point that it has ever reached. Of course the valley was created at some time! A few hours later (8.20am) the level had gone down a bit.

Happy Feet penguin

2010-12-30T03:24:00.001-08:00

Last night we watched "Happy Feet"; Fred had not seen it before. Yes, entertaining, but we wondered a bit about the anthropomorphism of it. But we shouldn't have worried. Today this video is on LOL Cats. These are real penguins, and the youngster is doing just what was being done in the movie! Had he been watching the movie?

http://icanhascheezburger.com/2010/12/29/funny-pictures-videos-penguin-loves-snow/

Christmas Letter 2010

2010-12-22T16:41:00.001-08:00

Christmas Greetings to those who read this blog! (are you out there Gladys?)
I won't point you to a clogged up personal web page, but a version of my christmas letter can be read at:

http://members.tip.net.au/~lindafrd/Christmas_Letter_2010.pdf

enjoy!

2010-12-15T20:58:00.000-08:00

The Creek is roaring

2010-12-08T10:06:00.001-08:00

At 4am on 9th December 2010. Fred read the rain gauge and we had had 73mm. Now it is nearly 5am and the rain is still falling heavily. We will have had three inches tonight. The creek is roaring below, the eastern verandah is swamped.
Our main worry is that the dam wall beside the creek might be weak. There was originally a dug out area which looked as if a potter had been getting clay. That was what had led us to expect a clay floor to the dam. Unfortunately that was wrong. With the creek flooding as much as it is doing that will be a weak point. If it has not collapsed (and the night time is no time to look!) then that might be a place to dig out completely so that the dam is drained and no longer able to fill.
The wombat has dug a hole by the driveway coming down to the house. He would not have been able to cross the creek to the old burrow which is now being flooded for the third time in the last couple of months.
"Land of droughts and flooding rains". It certainly is. But we still remember thinking that it would never rain again. Tonight is similar to a night twenty five or thirty years ago when the rammed earth walls were finished to the lintel height and five inches of rain fell. We covered and re-covered the walls with plastic until the torches ran out. Then we retreated to the shed, lying in bed thinking that the walls would be simply mud in the morning. They were not. We built the lintel and put on the roof. Now we sit in the kitchen drinking tea as the rain pours down!

Solar powered fridge

2010-11-05T05:55:00.001-07:00

I had heard of this fridge but not seen the description before:

One of the biggest advantages of Cummins’ design is its relative simplicity. It can be easily made using recycled materials, such as cardboard and metal.

Ms. Cummins' solar powered refrigerator works like this:
The fridge’s inner chamber, which stores items like milk, cheese and other perishables, is surrounded by a layer of organic material, sand, soil or composted waste.
This layer is then sealed in between the solar fridge’s outer chamber and soaked in water. The device is placed in the sun and as the water evaporates, heat is drawn away from the inner chamber, dramatically cooling items inside.

Found on the energy matters web site.

what to do...

2010-10-17T06:16:00.001-07:00

I am watching the canonization of Mary MacKillop and wanting so much more commentary to be happening!

But also reading Bp Gene Robinson's comments that came out a week or so ago: http://walkingwithintegrity.blogspot.com/2010/10/how-religion-is-killing-our-most.html

He writes:

These bullying behaviors would not exist without the undergirding and the patina of respect provided by religious fervor against LGBT people. It's time for "tolerant" religious people to acknowledge the straight line between the official anti-gay theologies of their denominations and the deaths of these young people. Nothing short of changing our theology of human sexuality will save these young and precious lives.

It's time to change our theology. Having heard Dr Scott Cowdell talking about sexuality at the deacon's conference last week I agree! We need to be more courageous in how we tackle it!

On a different, but maybe in a strange way related topic, it is time to encourage our politicians to be courageous and let young people and their families (and others too perhaps) out of the indefinite mandatory detention that occur for boat people who are seeking asylum. Write letters, send faxes, send emails! Chilout is organised again and making a mark. This is the time to make a difference!

The address for the minister is:

The Hon Chris Bowen MP
Minister for Immigration and Citizenship
PO Box 6022
House of Representatives
Parliament House
CANBERRA ACT 2600

Other addresses are at http://www.refugeeaction.org/rac/Contact_details.htm (cc your letter to your local rep and to Scott Morrison shadow minister.)

Prayer

2010-10-04T05:51:00.001-07:00

It is very unusual for me to want to say anything at all about prayer. And yet I put together the prayers in the pew sheet every week, just compiled from various cycles (ecumenical, Anglican and Diocesan). Last week a paragraph or two from the Changing Attitude blog made so much sense to me. Of course I should have, maybe I actually have, read it all before. But Colin Coward's comments make it stand out for me.
for more go to: http://changingattitude-england.blogspot.com/2010/09/gay-bishops-still-dont-exist-in-public.html Colin writes:

"I’ve now read the Times interview with the Archbishop in its entirety and want to begin by focussing on something that wasn’t reported elsewhere but is key to my Christian life and witness. Archbishop Rowan told his interviewer that “... the point of praying is to open yourself up to God so God can do what he wants with you. You come with empty hands, as silent as you can be and say, ‘Over to you.’ So you could say the function was to make you the person God wants you to be – in the full awareness that that might not be quite the person you think you want to be.”

Yes indeed. Prayer is opening yourself up to God and both ++Rowan and I pray in a similar way. The intention is to make you the person God wants you to be, and there’s the rub. Does God want me to be a priest? Does God want me to be gay? Does God want me to be celibate? Does God want me to love my partner and enjoy my life with him to the full? What do I do when these conflict, as they do at the moment? When I centre in prayer and say, ‘Over to you’, God still seems to be saying that each of these aspects of me are part of the person God wants me to be."

Perhaps for me it is still as hazy as watching this whale swimming underwater. But there is something huge and powerful there!

The National Gallery

2010-10-02T06:46:00.001-07:00

I have photos of the National Gallery's wonderful projection of art works onto the building this week.

NGA014.jpg	02-Oct-2010 23:33	130K
NGA991.jpg	02-Oct-2010 22:34	137K
NGA993.jpg	02-Oct-2010 22:34	161K
NGA994.jpg	02-Oct-2010 22:35	164K
NGA996.jpg	02-Oct-2010 22:36	135K
NGA998.jpg	02-Oct-2010 23:31	184K

I love this aspect of the gallery. They did it a couple of years ago. I am thrilled with it. I love these photos. They work! I think the gallery should print a book! The projections seem to have a "template" to project through which means the light is only on the building, not windows or openings. There has been a lot of work gone into the show.
These photos were taken on the night the new entrance to the gallery was opened. 30th October 2010.

Unexpected Witnessing

2010-09-30T07:31:00.001-07:00

From Canon Susan Russell of the Episcopal Church is a story of the witness that being inclusive can be. A hard morning's work talking to a meeting of bishops and then dinner. Over dinner the conversation continues and the young people serving them overhear the conversations. Read what happens at the bottom of the post on the "Walking with Integrity" blog:
http://walkingwithintegrity.blogspot.com/2010/09/amazing-day-amazing-witness.html

and Susan's conclusion:

While we were obsessing about perfecting PowerPoint slides and refining our messaging about the SCLM project, these earnest young people responded to the few crumbs of conversation they overheard at our dinner table like they were starving for hope. And if those crumbs gave them that hope and energy – and gave them the courage to come up to a table full of “church people” and say, “Wow … we want to know more about what you’re talking about!” then imagine how they and countless others like them are yearning for the banquet we set every time we gather to witness to God’s inclusive love.

(The work being done was about liturgy for blessing same sex relationships in the Episcopal Church. It was not about evangelising!)

wigs for judges?, or justice? (politics)

2010-09-26T17:32:00.001-07:00

I found this on a Sri Lankan blog at http://blog.srilankacampaign.org/2010/09/is-colombos-middle-class-waking-up.html
an interesting parable about what we focus on for our political campaigns, is it wigs or justice itself that are important?
Perhaps a comment to be thought about for many of our daily activities!

Some things can be faked but it is dangerous to make them appear as fakes. The old fox Jayewardene who took away most of the substance of democracy from Sri Lankans made sure that all the appearances were kept intact. Sirimavo Bandaranayake’s coalition governments foolishly took away the wigs from judges and that caused such an upset that the minister of justice and his secretary later lost their civil rights. But Jayewardene virtually destroyed the independence of the judiciary while keeping all the outward appearances correct. Not many found fault with him.

But the Rajapakse regime not only wants all power to themselves they also want to make it appear that they have all the power. They not only want make elections a mere ritual without substance but they want to make them appear so. Jayewardene knew that it not wise to disturb Colombo’s middle class. The Rajapakses, on the other hand do not feel happy unless Colombo’s middle class stand to attention whenever they appear before them. They want not only to be big but also to appear big. To feel that way, they are trampling very openly on elections and courts. The two things that Colombo’s middle class attach some importance to.

That perhaps may prove to be too much of a mistake.

In the meantime, let us also remember the Sri Lankan situation and those who seek asylum here and the people who are left behind to survive in a nation after the end of the war there. Canberra has been the home for a number of people from this island over a number of generations. If the exodus from post colonial Ceylon is included then that means some very important people in my life!
And the gradual demise of democracy under the strains of tension in the society may be a worry for us in Australia as we look to the Parliament tomorrow to see how a minority government will govern. I know of three gatherings outside the Parliament that are planned for Tuesday 28th September. Our Women in Black vigil will again be at the back door as the workers come in for work. (7.30am-8.30am ish) Then a Climate Change group at 8.45 on the front lawns and at 12.30 a People's Assembly hoping to bring the plight of detained asylum seekers to the conscience of the nation. This Parliament will have a lot to do. May it work with good will, humour, clarity and do the job well. While I preach about Justice and Peace, perhaps righteousness needs another look. What is a righteous person? One who works well, with good will, humour etc? .

only in Ireland? (cat travel pass)

2010-09-03T05:43:00.000-07:00

apologies for the LOL Speak here; Fred's comment was "only in Ireland!"

Dis kitteh, Lilou, hopped on a train to Dublin—wifout paying teh fare, ai might add—and waz later reunited wif her owners after staff tweeted abowt teh incident. Becuz, lyk all kittehs, Lilou iz a spoiled princess, she was issued her very own rail card. So nao she can take trips to teh Temple Bar district anytime she feels tirsy for a pint o’ Guinness!
see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Raimon Panikkar

2010-09-02T22:18:00.001-07:00

Raimon Panikkar died last week in Spain. His funeral is today (3rd Sept 2010).

Peter Kirkwood writes an appreciation of his work in Eureka Street.
http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=23034

Perhaps his last book, The Rhythmn of Being will be the one which I finally actually read. I have known of his work all my adult life, but not delved deeply into the multi faith dialogue which he exhibited in his own self as well as in his scholastic work.

The 2009 Compass program which focussed on Joan Hendricks features Raimon Panikkar;
http://www.abc.net.au/compass/s2601089.htm

the little details of government...

2010-09-01T05:50:00.001-07:00

on Brian's blog http://www.nottoomuch.com/
good to have it written down!

The last day for the return of the writs with the formal election results is — wait for it — 26 October 2010. (The Electoral Commission does its best to make it well before then.) The Parliament must meet within 30 days of the day appointed for the return of the writs (25 November 2010). A Prime Minister lacking the support of the majority of MPs could hang on until them. Only if the House failed to support the government would the PM then be obliged to resign. The first test of this would be the election of a Speaker.

and the Greens/government agreement: http://greens.org.au/greens_labor_deal
The full agreement is five pages and worth seeing.

James Alison visit to Australia

2010-08-18T05:47:00.001-07:00

James Alison is visiting Australia in September. He will be in Canberra and Sydney and Perth.
(sorry Melbournians, you seem to miss out!)

For those who can't attend any of this, it is still very worthwhile looking at his pages at http://www.jamesalison.co.uk/

He has influenced me deeply. I did a short Good Friday meditation a few years ago and a theology teacher asked me after how much of Girard I had read. I hadn't even heard of him then! But I has picked it up from reading James on line.

The Canberra events include

Monday 13th September 2.00-4.30pm Atonement Retreat
Tuesday 14th September 7.30pm Public Lecture
both events at the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture
(Blackall Street Barton)

Australian program:
http://www.eremos.org.au/news/james-alison-comprehensive-list-of-events

Itinerary:
10–18 September Charles Sturt University, Canberra, contact Scott Cowdell scowdell@csu.edu.au
Thurs, 23 Sept Eremos presents - The Challenge of an Opening Horizon at Paddington Uniting Church (Sydney). For more details, click here: http://www.eremos.org.au/news/james-alison-an-opening-horizon-thursday-23rd-sept
Fri, 24 Sept Eremos presents - The Shape of God's Affection at Pitt Street Uniting Church, Sydney. For more details, click here: http://www.eremos.org.au/news/james-alison-the-shape-of-gods-affection-friday-24th-sept

Sat, 25 Sept Eremos and the UTC present - Undergoing God at the Centre for Ministry, North Parramatta (Sydney). For more details, click here: http://www.eremos.org.au/news/james-alison-undergoing-god-saturday-25th-september

26 Sept - 2 Oct Perth (Contact Sr Mary Engelbrecht mengelbrecht@sosjwa.org.au)

3–9 October New South Wales, Contact Br Peter Carroll brp@trinitylismore.com

He was speaker at the most recent John Main Seminar http://www.jms10.com/speaker.html

http://changingattitude-england.blogspot.com/2010/08/broken-hearts-and-new-creation-james.html

The Public Conversation (& a Green Ad. to watch)

2010-08-15T02:32:00.001-07:00

The ad that hopefully everyone is talking about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4jI1atQwp4

A brilliant ad, it can't be used by The Greens (ABC policy I suppose); so we (all of us) need to pass it around.

Other Conversations:

In the last few weeks three voices have impressed me.

General Leahy's Lowy Institute Address is at:
http://www.lowyinstitute.org/Publication.asp?pid=1343
(use Internet Explorer to download.) When are we at war? Who should be involved. It isn't just about big aeroplanes and submarines. What part do civilians play? I wait to hear more. We do waste so much money... and don't get to the underlying issues/causes....

The voice of reason: Patrick McGorry (Australian of the Year 2010) in The Age 23 July 2010. He concludes: "Middle Australia is entitled to ask why there is so little money for vital mental health services for Australians but unlimited funds to support a policy driven by emotion and optics. Why not inject some hard-nosed pragmatism into the discussion and take the paranoia out?" http://tinyurl.com/2489dvn His calm and deliberate tone cuts through the rhetoric that has perhaps seemed to be out of control during an election. Well worth reading the whole article!

http://tinyurl.com/23y8vnm The Edmund Rice Centre August newsletter. With words of encouragement: "In monitoring public debate in the past months we've seen a marked improvement in public discourse. Within the asylum seeker debate, there is a new wide-spread 'human rights literacy' at the broad grass-roots level. For the first time on this issue there is an ascendant strong community voice empowered to readily debunk the myths."

Pride, and a sermon... links.

2010-08-09T19:36:00.001-07:00

http://changingattitude-england.blogspot.com/2010/08/changing-attitude-at-brigthon-pride.html

A lovely item from Colin about Pride Parade in Brighton, UK. It must be summer in the northern hemisphere! (It is lovely and wet here today.)

This Changing Attitude post fits in nicely with my sermon for Stephen's Day last week.
http://www.stphilipsoconnor.org.au/sermons/01August2010_LA.html

Dave Roviks song They are Building a Wall

2010-07-21T20:46:00.001-07:00

Dave Roviks is in Australia.

Listen to this song at http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=111310&content=songinfo&songID=6265034

Our walls are built of razor wire and the deep ocean, but we are building walls. (A poster seen in Wales which came from an Irish Peace conference: The Walls of Division do not reach to Heaven!)

Lyrics

They're building a wall
A wall between friends
A wall that justifies
Any means for their ends
A wall between Semites
Rich and poor
Brothers and sisters
From not so long before
Many feet thick
And twenty feet high
No one can look through it
And into the eye
Of a person you might know
To whom you might confide
Now just a stranger
On the other side

They're building a wall
Between water and land
So we can eat fruit
And they can eat sand
A wall to make sure
That our orchards will grow
And our kids can get fat
And not need to know
Of the cities in ruins
And the children in fear
That your fathers and brothers
In tanks might be near
A wall to keep quiet
That which you fear most
So you don't have to listen
To your grandfather's ghost

They're building a wall
Between future and past
A wall to keep separate
The chambers of gas
From bulldozers, gunships
And the tears of a child
Dignity, love
And all honor defiled
To remove reality
From your facts on the ground
A wall to keep distant
The terrible sound
Of the houses that crumble
And the children that die
A wall to keep separate
The truth from the lie

They're building a wall
And at such a cost
Land, money and safety
And all the lives lost
A wall made of brick
But bricks can be broken
When the people of Zion
Have finally awoken
And said no more walls
No more refugees
No more keeping people
Upon their knees
And then the history books
Will someday recall
Before apartheid was ended
They were building a wall

Created February, 2004
Copyright David Rovics 2004, all rights reserved

Atonement

2010-07-05T05:51:00.001-07:00

http://michaelcardensjottings.blogspot.com/2010/07/gods-friendship.html
A long post from Michael. It is so good to see him back. This is theology that talks the language which talks to me. That is about creation, about consciousness and renewal of the creation. The ideas may be behind much of the way we talk about our religion, but perhaps I need to "interpret and translate" too much when I hear it. I will be preaching in a few weeks time and want to tease out this idea of the language we use influencing the way we think.

but back to atonement: this paragraph comes some way in to the blog post:

"Atonement was key to the old Temple Judaism of the time (and remains so for Rabbinic Judaism too) such that what really happened was that Christians interpreted the execution of Jesus in light of the rituals and theology of the Day of Atonement as practised in the Temple (in 30CE at Jerusalem and one also at Leontopolis in Egypt). In these rituals the High Priest slaughters first a bull and then a goat and then takes the blood into the Holy of Holies. The blood is then sprinkled and smeared on various parts of the Temple. The Day of Atonement is part of the New Year festival at the autumnal equinox which celebrates the creation of the universe and the renewal of creation. Blood is life and the animal blood represents the blood/life of the High Priest who represents Yahweh, the LORD, who creates and renews creation by an outpouring of the divine life. In esoteric Judaism, this outpouring is understood as the Tree of Life of Kabbalah by which creation occurs through the outpouring of the divine light through the 10 Sefiroth or emanations that comprise the Tree and mapping the process of creation, of consciousness. In Christianity, Jesus on the cross pours out his blood/life as befits the Heavenly High Priest through whom all creation came to be. Jesus on the cross instantiates the divine processes of creation, atonement, renewal. More than anything else atonement is about healing creation, making it whole, restoring it to balance, which is why a key aspect of Jesus public career is healing the sick. Jesus also forgives sin; forgiveness and healing more often go hand in hand in the gospel accounts. Healing, renewal, liberation, and forgiveness are all part of the ancient Jewish theology of Atonement as expressed not only through the annual rituals of Yom Kippur but the associated sabbath and Jubilee years which were proclaimed on the Day of Atonement."

and a little later on:

"Nevertheless, while the Temple rituals of atonement were no doubt profound and awe-inspiring, death on the cross is not. It is brutal, disgusting, horrifying and shameful. Crucifixion was meant to debase and degrade as well as kill. So the sight of a person hanging bloodied and brutalised on a cross is not self-evidently an instantiation of the divine creative and healing process, far from it. I think it is this fact that lies behind the Christian stress on kenosis, self-emptying, that is understood from very early on as a hallmark of the divine, of the divine as manifested in Jesus. The god of Christianity is a god who submits to degradation and abandonment and death - eloi, eloi, lama sabacthani - this is a god who knows despair and brokenness. In other words this is a god who approaches humans on the same level, sharing human pain and desolation, who will submit to brutal death rather than summon legions of angels to lord it over humans."

Now, Michael does use another blog, so I feel no shame using his, but there is just so much more. He is really writing about apokatastasis; I leap a bit to say: universalism... Origen is one of my favourites and he was called (after his death) a heretic for this. But it stays with the eastern church. the west abandoned it totally but we should revisit it. I recommend the whole of Michael's post. now I return to "Le Tour" (maybe that is why I don't write these things myself! :-) )

Obama on clean energy.

2010-06-25T07:38:00.001-07:00

From President Obama's talk to the nation from the Oval Office:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-nation-bp-oil-spill

"For decades, we have known the days of cheap and easily accessible oil were numbered. For decades, we’ve talked and talked about the need to end America’s century-long addiction to fossil fuels. And for decades, we have failed to act with the sense of urgency that this challenge requires. Time and again, the path forward has been blocked -- not only by oil industry lobbyists, but also by a lack of political courage and candor.

The consequences of our inaction are now in plain sight. Countries like China are investing in clean energy jobs and industries that should be right here in America. Each day, we send nearly $1 billion of our wealth to foreign countries for their oil. And today, as we look to the Gulf, we see an entire way of life being threatened by a menacing cloud of black crude.

We cannot consign our children to this future. The tragedy unfolding on our coast is the most painful and powerful reminder yet that the time to embrace a clean energy future is now. Now is the moment for this generation to embark on a national mission to unleash America’s innovation and seize control of our own destiny.

This is not some distant vision for America. The transition away from fossil fuels is going to take some time, but over the last year and a half, we’ve already taken unprecedented action to jumpstart the clean energy industry. As we speak, old factories are reopening to produce wind turbines, people are going back to work installing energy-efficient windows, and small businesses are making solar panels. Consumers are buying more efficient cars and trucks, and families are making their homes more energy-efficient. Scientists and researchers are discovering clean energy technologies that someday will lead to entire new industries.

Each of us has a part to play in a new future that will benefit all of us. As we recover from this recession, the transition to clean energy has the potential to grow our economy and create millions of jobs -– but only if we accelerate that transition. Only if we seize the moment. And only if we rally together and act as one nation –- workers and entrepreneurs; scientists and citizens; the public and private sectors.
When I was a candidate for this office, I laid out a set of principles that would move our country towards energy independence. Last year, the House of Representatives acted on these principles by passing a strong and comprehensive energy and climate bill –- a bill that finally makes clean energy the profitable kind of energy for America’s businesses.

Now, there are costs associated with this transition. And there are some who believe that we can’t afford those costs right now. I say we can’t afford not to change how we produce and use energy -– because the long-term costs to our economy, our national security, and our environment are far greater.

So I’m happy to look at other ideas and approaches from either party -– as long they seriously tackle our addiction to fossil fuels. Some have suggested raising efficiency standards in our buildings like we did in our cars and trucks. Some believe we should set standards to ensure that more of our electricity comes from wind and solar power. Others wonder why the energy industry only spends a fraction of what the high-tech industry does on research and development -– and want to rapidly boost our investments in such research and development.

All of these approaches have merit, and deserve a fair hearing in the months ahead. But the one approach I will not accept is inaction. The one answer I will not settle for is the idea that this challenge is somehow too big and too difficult to meet. You know, the same thing was said about our ability to produce enough planes and tanks in World War II. The same thing was said about our ability to harness the science and technology to land a man safely on the surface of the moon. And yet, time and again, we have refused to settle for the paltry limits of conventional wisdom. Instead, what has defined us as a nation since our founding is the capacity to shape our destiny -– our determination to fight for the America we want for our children. Even if we’re unsure exactly what that looks like. Even if we don’t yet know precisely how we’re going to get there. We know we’ll get there.

It’s a faith in the future that sustains us as a people. It is that same faith that sustains our neighbors in the Gulf right now."

Letter to PM Julia

2010-06-25T06:55:00.001-07:00

this was sent via Get UP Welcome Writ Large

Dear Prime Minister,

warm congratulations on yesterday (24th June). I hope it will be a fulfilling and exciting time for you.
My plea is that you will be mindful of the needs and terrors facing those who seek asylum in our country. Those who cannot obtain a visa to fly in and whose only hope is to take to the seas in leaky boats.

I do not share that worry about border protection that you talked of in your press conference yesterday, but I understand that you do know more about it than I do. However, I would hope that you might lead us to be the welcoming nation that we were when I was at school in the 1950's. A time of migration and a time when Australia was a refuge for many fleeing the aftermath of war.

But now, we need a new story to build on the strength of the multi cultural society we have become. I ask that you might seek to find that.

I would also encourage you in your efforts to place a price on carbon and to bring Australians with you.
Climate change is not something to "believe in", but something to cause great action and deep changes in the way we live our lives. Changing our lives to combat this danger can bring great benefit to all of us.

I write as a "Woman in Black", one who has stood at the back entry into Parliament on those early mornings of a new sitting. As I watch you all (politicians and others) come into the Parliament to work I am very aware of the weight of the task that we lay upon your shoulders. May that task be light upon you, enjoyable and fulfilling,

yours sincerely,

Michael's latest piece. Christianity's "Fall".

2010-06-22T21:25:00.001-07:00

http://michaelcardensjottings.blogspot.com/2010/06/whos-responsible-for-christianitys-fall.html

Another fascinating blog from Michael Carden. I love the new eyes that he uses to see the christian story.

Rejecting the dualism of Paul versus Jesus... Pointing out the Californian Jesus of the 'Jesus Seminar'...

There is a lot here, worth looking at deeply! thank you Michael!

The Broad Vision

2010-06-21T06:39:00.001-07:00

http://changingattitude-england.blogspot.com/2010/06/why-is-archbishop-of-canterbury.html

Colin Coward is again broadening the view!

"There is a movement of the Spirit flowing in our world which is leading people in new directions, towards a reconnection with the earth, our environment and the inherent unity of all creation in God and away from dualism, polarization and the abuse of our planet and of each other."

I am taken by calls for "new eyes for seeing" (since the WCC gathering in Canberra 1991). Colin quotes the Archbishop of Canterbury's sermon to the Royal Society

To keep the eye open is to keep open the possibility of health for the whole body (says Our Lord). And surely not only the body of the individual but the body of a society..

But we are always hindered by what Bergson alerted us to:

"The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend"

an archbishop writes to the Anglican Communion...

2010-06-03T18:11:00.001-07:00

I was unwilling to post a link to Archbishop Rowan William's letter to the Anglican communion until I read Bishop Katharine's response. I can't find that response on the web so I put it up on our parish web site.

A conversation, a "listening process" requires two participants. The way I read what the communion is saying to the episcopal church is "stop doing it" (or you will go blind?)"; no, "stop doing it" and you listen to us. Who is listening to the episcopal church?

A typical problem for conflict resolution. Every one is feeling wronged, or taking the role of the under-dog, the victim, it's all their fault...

Perhaps both bishops are trying to get beyond that. I just don't see it very clearly. (Maybe more clearly while writing this, but now I have to go and do women-in-black. There is still work to be done!
The Archbishop of Canterbury +Rowan Williams wrote to the Anglican Communion at Pentecost. A summary and link to the letter is at http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/2876
Download the letter at the Archbishop of Canterbury's Pentecost Letter [89kbWordDoc]
Episcopalian (USA) Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori responds to the Archbishop of Canterbury's Pentecost letter.http://www.stphilipsoconnor.org.au/Response.html
(Brian has found it at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_122615_ENG_HTM.htm)

Colin Coward's comment is now on the changing attitude blog at http://changingattitude-england.blogspot.com/2010/06/what-archbishop-of-canterbury-and.html

religions and languages

2010-05-25T07:12:00.001-07:00

Michael is back on his blog!

and writing some lovely bits that I am happy to pass on. His latest blog is about Samaritans. http://michaelcardensjottings.blogspot.com/2010/05/samaritans.html

It brings back memories of the trip to Palestine and Israel last year.

near the end he writes:

Like languages, religions express something about what it means to be human. The death of a religion, like the death of a language is an irreparable loss. Religious diversity must be fostered, encouraged, sustained and celebrated; respected.

An important point that I hadn't really seen before. That Language and Religion can be the cradles, the containers in which we hold our culture and our humanity.

Languages I see as dying out too fast. And I was watching SBS tonight about the teaching of ethics being available to students who do not take SRE (special religious education). It is a philosophy based programme, not about morality. Seems very good to me. But where does that leave "religion"? Is there any place for it in our society? I certainly think so, and think that the University chaplaincy is one place to ask the question. I am getting closer to making up a uni blog there.

Where has all the passion gone?

2010-05-24T01:26:00.001-07:00

Where has all the passion gone? asks Pat Brennan in an address to Sydney MOW (Movement for the Ordination of Women)

"If you occupy the place of prophesy but do not prophesy, you are stifling passion."

An important word to all of us.

Lizards facing extinction with warming

2010-05-14T23:48:00.001-07:00

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2010/s2899483.htm

I heard part of this on Friday as Andrew was doing some more electrical work that had been made necessary by our recent additions to our photovoltaic array.

The study in Mexico that is published in Science this week might have an explanation for the diminished skink population here. I had blamed the snake. I might have been wrong!

The skinks obviously do not like the heat on very hot days. I have had a papier mache cover on the wire over their birthing spot for some years now. But this year they didn't even get over to the mud bricks which had been a normal cool spot for them over the years. (ten or more?)

The study suggests that lizards need more than four hours in a day when they don't have to work at keeping cool, but can spend their energy getting food and doing all the social things that are needed to keep the population going. I doubt if our lizards would have that these days. They don't start to move without the sun being on their rocks (even if the morning is warm enough); then the sun is too hot on many summer days. (even in spring time we had a heat wave in 2009!)

When they come out of hibernation, perhaps I will feed them some more.

and on another note. The front verandah has been draped in gold for a few months. A "golden orb" spider took up residence near the clothes line that Mike put in. I have been surprised that she survived so long. She was there for some months and we have had some frosts. But 'Shelob' lost her life in Thursday's frost. On Wednesday Fred had seen the Wattle Bird having a go at the huge spider as she sat in the middle of her web. What a honey eater was doing looking at her I don't understand! I looked out at 5am on Thursday and she was still there. But by 7am the frost had come down (-1 I think) and she had gone.

The New Yorker on Anglicanism in the UK

2010-04-30T06:49:00.000-07:00

A good comment on fundamentalism... "a very modern thing"

From The NewYorker

by Jane Kramer
The New Yorker, April 26, 2010

found on the St Matthews Westminster site:
http://www.stmw.org/4/post/2010/04/a-canterbury-tale-the-battle-within-the-church-of-england-to-allow-women-to-be-bishops.html

[Archbishop of Canterbury] Williams admits that the lessons of fourth-century Christian conflicts are cold comfort to women fighting for equality in their church in 2010. Most of the conflicts dividing the Anglican world today have settled directly on them and, if not on them, on the openly gay priests who are waiting in line behind them - the result, in part, of an epidemic of literalism that is hardly confined to Anglicans. ‘One of the odd things about fundamentalism in its American form, but not exclusively, is that it’s paradoxically a very modern thing,’ he told me. ‘A crude nineteenth-century reaction to a crude nineteenth-century scientism - a kind of mirror image of that positivist yes-or-no knowledge that you can pin down.’ He described it, in England, as a wholesale rejection of intellectual engagement and intellectual depth in Scripture and compared it to what was happening in Islam. "I’ve sometimes argued with people on the other side of the river here, in Parliament, saying, Don’t talk about fundamentalist and modern Muslims, talk about primitivist and traditionalist Muslims - ones who only know the Koran and ones who actually know what it is like to have a thickly textured cultural and intellectual Islamic life."

notes for Anzac Day (remembering the Armenians)

2010-04-25T03:32:00.001-07:00

Anzac Day, listening to the evening news after having a fairly normal Sunday, it is still my experience of Anzac Day. very difficult... In the Canberra Times a young mother takes her children to the War Memorial to find out what war really is like. "I'm to precious to be killed aren't I Mum?"
But I remember Poppy T in Queanbeyan. Angry about what he had been forced to do in the Gallipoli trenches as they bayonetted the enemy. That is the agony of war; the offence; the unspeakable horror; what people do to one another. Is it any wonder that we who grew up in the shadow of war were not told? How do you tell your children that you had done such things?

reading Brian's blog I discover ekklesia. and this article

http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/essay_ArmenianGenocide

what is needed is a link to The Monthly magazine article about the connections between the Armenian Genocide and Gallipoli. April 24th and 25th 1915

http://www.themonthly.com.au/february-2007-brief

"During the exact time Australian troops spent in hell on Gallipoli, another event of world-historical importance was taking place on contiguous ground: the Armenian Genocide. Some contemporary scholars think that one million people were murdered during this catastrophe. The crime was committed by the leadership of the Ottoman Turkish Empire: the empire which Australian troops, as part of the Anglo-French force, invaded."
In "A Turkish Tale", Robert Manne tackles the awful episode that, for Australia, hides in the shadow of Gallipoli: the genocide which bears directly on the major Australian involvement in World War I but which forms no part of the Anzac story.
"In the scores of books written about Australia and Gallipoli, why has no Australian historian ever asked the question that should have occurred most naturally to a member of the profession: namely, did the Anglo-French Dardanelles campaign play any role in the Ottoman regime's decision for genocide?"
.
My memory of the article is first, that the genocide started with the hanging of four Armenian intellectuals in Istanbul on the 24th April 1915. But that the main massacres occurred in the East of the country closer to Armenia itself. The problem was that the Armenians were christian. Some at least were possibly assisting the western powers (that is us). Then Turkey was invaded by Christians. and the terror was unleashed.

I first heard about the massacres on a beautiful winter's day in 1971 on the Mediterranean coast at Izmir. A young man told me that the beach here was a place where the Armenians had been pushed into the sea. Izmir is not a recognised site of a massacre, but the memory of what had been done there remains.

A Eulogy for Rose

2010-04-15T01:16:00.001-07:00

This blog has been rather silent lately. There have been other things to attend to. Sitting with Rose as she was dying while difficult was still very much a privilege.

I put here the eulogy I read at her funeral on Tuesday.

The world (and especially George Forbes House) will miss Rose.

We forgot one important event in her life. Mum kissed the Blarney Stone! (in her late seventies or eighties).

She would definitely have slid down banisters. I was not definite enough about that in the following eulogy!

Linda

Rose Anchell 8-2-1916 - 6-4-2010

Rose was born at an early age within the sound of Bow Bells, in Homerton, in London's East End.

It was the eighth of the second, 1916; a fact that she remembered to her dying day. The youngest of a family of five children, it was probably her father who called her "the last rose of summer". (and, Mum used to add: "and still blooming!"
Her mother, very sternly, told the other children who called her "fatty" that "Her Name is Rose!".

A childhood with Salvation Army Sunday School, jumping over balustrades, and, if it wasn't just an older imagination, sliding down banisters, set her up to be the wonderful cockney that she was.

But life was not to be a straight forward, simple, affair.

A Londoner born in 1916 had much to contend with. Poverty and war were facts of life. Rose managed a hair perm twice a year and swimming too! (Swimming lessons did get you out of school!) She won a medal in a works swimming carnival in 1932 at the Oglethorpe Bowl. (but neglected to teach her son to swim!)

In 1939 Rose East married Fred Anchell, of the Rifle Brigade at the Hackney Registry office. The photos were taken in front of the protective sandbags.

Rose went into the Land Army. The London factory worker was, it would seem, rather unwilling. But driving a tractor into a ditch meant returning to London (and the bombs).

Fred returned after gallant service in Calais (and a dunking in the channel); then left for North Africa where he became a prisoner of war for the remainder of the hostilities.

Rose was evacuated to Hertfordshire to give birth to her first son, Fred (or Freddie) and again, quickly returned to London.

In 1946 Rodney was born, but after many medical problems he died in 1948. A grief shared with few.

Rose worked in factories; stitching cheque books; Berger's Paints, The Metal Box factory. many and various places.

A move from Walthamstow (London) to Kent; -Davis Estate in Chatham meant work at Rochester airport industrial area and Foster Clark's canning factory and the Sharps Toffee Factory in Maidstone, Kent.

But Fred (senior) was struggling with bronchitis stirred up by the war. In 1961 the family set sail on the Arcadia to Australia. (Rose was over forty.)

Adelaide was the destination. Young Fred found his feet in Melbourne. But Rose and Fred were unsettled and returned to England. To find work they went to Rose's eldest brother in South Africa. That was a difficult time.

One thing that should be said about Rose is that she noticed people. She loved company and did not recognise social boundaries, especially not racial ones. Apartheid era South Africa was not an easy place to be.

Anyway, young Fred had now become Australian. So they returned and found work in Victoria as gardener (Fred) and Cook/Housekeeper at various western district farming properties; cooking for jackaroos and neighbours.

One dinner party guest asked who had cooked the meal, then went in to the kitchen to thank the cook. It was the Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser.

As Fred's emphysema worsened, they took work in Melbourne, at the Walter and Eliza Hall institute. Here Rose was "bottle washer" for Sir Gustav Nossel.

Retirement came in Geelong with Rose nursing Fred until his death in 1986.

She was then in the RSL Village and a good neighbour to all. In the late 1990's Rose realised that she needed to move closer to Fred and Linda near Queanbeyan. She found the Legacy Village units and arranged to move.

So Rose came to Queanbeyan. She continued to enjoy cruising, including cruises on the QEII (Q E 2) amongst others; She visited relatives in Ireland and travelled the world on her own or with (young) Fred. She joined in the social life of Legacy village; walked into town to the Chinese bakery and the icecreamery and connected with St Philip's in O'Connor.

But on her last cruise to New Zealand, things were not right. Mum came back with flu, saw a gerontologist and was diagnosed with dementia. It had come on late in life and she was independent for a few more years. Eventually there was the need for assisted living at George Forbes House.

Here Rose's cockney humour came to the fore. To enquiries about her health. How are you? "All right", is the answer. "all down one side" (with right hand swinging downwards).
"What do you want on your sandwich today?" asks Chris.
"A man!" is the reply.

Rose, you never did find that millionaire at the club! sorry

Our Arrogance

2010-03-28T16:59:00.001-07:00

A sound byte from Ken Henry in the Canberra Times today:
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/henry-hits-out-at-water-management/1788433.aspx?src=enews

Our interaction with the environment should have brought us humility. Instead we are arrogant.

He said:

"All my life I have heard people talking about our big brains, our capacity to learn from our mistakes and the creativity we bring to fixing them,'' he said.
"Every day, at some point, this is what I hear. But I have to say that it's not what I see.
"Frankly, it's time we stopped kidding ourselves.
"'If the history of our engagement with this environment has taught us anything at all, it should be that we have been blind-sided by our arrogance. It should have taught us humility."

Send in the Clowns

2010-03-26T05:05:00.001-07:00

Dame Judi Dench sings.

I heard this on local radio (just a bit) this afternoon. I have always enjoyed Judi's acting, but this is something else! She has rescued the song for me.

"domestic matters"

2010-03-23T06:15:00.001-07:00

I live in a paddock that was bare when we first arrived thirty five years ago. It was covered in phalaris and there was a horse but the paddock had not been heavily grazed for some years. There were a few rose briars in amongst the rocks. No trees at all.

We planted Eucalyptus cinerea and Fred and Derick planted masses of others in between preparing to build the house. Then the drought of the early eighties took most of them. But Fred persevered and trees grew. The original survivors grew tall and large. Others crowded into bushy patches that grew larger. We took seed from Joe and Bonnie's Black Sallys, propagated them in tubes and planted on the slope to the north of the house. (not shading the house!)

Fred is still planting trees.

I befriended "Tip" the original skink who had made his way from the rocks and briars on the south to the rock wall that Fred built. We came to know his family, deciding that he was a father and the other one was the mother. (proven when I actually saw the birthing of six live youngsters).
They lived near our back door, by the steps up to the shed in the rock wall and she produced six youngsters every year. Many of the years they all survived the winter hibernation until eventually they also began to produce young. (Did other skinks migrate in?)

We were having a population explosion. We still stopped the cats from catching them if possible and grieved when watching a Kookaburra eating one. But the cats did keep the mice away.

Then we became catless. And the magpies came and carolled us. Magnificent birds each with their own personality and preferences for particular foods! "Shadda" was the first who came to the back door looking in and casting her shadow on the glass. A brownish coloured magpie whom we thought was the mother. Was she an elder who died or a young male who was cast out? We don't know. But the next year "Auntie" came with three or four young ones but the attrition rate was high and eventually there was just two. "Aloyisius" and "Caruso". Caruso was a female and is still here despite attempts to get her independent. Aloyisius was the tamest, he sat on our laps to get food, but he was cast out to fend for himself.

We no longer name the young magpies. But they use the house verandah as a playground and sing and call out for more food; a call we increasingly ignore as fat worms get taken out of the garden.

So the years went on. Now this last season brought an early heatwave which brought an echidna to the house to get some shelter from the fierce Springtime heat. We have bushland here now! The wombats are on the creek and we have seen them in the garden when the grass was very bare during the drought. Now it is just the deposits in the gateway that excite us!

Occasionally we see kangaroos over here from the paddock across the road. Yesterday one was lying under the Black Sally's.

This year (2010) the skinks have seemed worried and frightened. Perhaps we were absent too long over September as they came out of hibernation. I don't know. Last week perhaps I saw the answer. A brown snake at the bottom of the stone wall. Is this the reason for the small number of baby skinks this year and the absence of last year's group? Fred did see the snake in springtime. Summer was fortunately for us a time when we didn't see it. But then while trying to keep safe, we also don't look deliberately. We know snakes are around. And the mice are here now too. The magpies get fed muesli these days. (no, no meat) and although crested pigeons, and crimson rosellas and blue wrens help to clean up, the mice do as well. Mice (and oats) bring snakes. I learnt that when we had chooks.

When I put clothes on the line under the verandah I have to be careful of the golden orb spider that is growing rather large by the post. A wonderful web is crafted every morning and glows gold in the sunlight.

So the bushland that Fred planted is flourishing. I'm not sure if I am pleased! I liked it better when we knew the animals around us as individuals. I rejoiced at births and grieved losses.

Perhaps it is time to learn a deeper way.

"Climate Denial"

2010-03-15T04:05:00.001-07:00

My apologies, this one is a ramble. But life is getting complicated. Perhaps there are some resources here for you to follow up.

Tonight (Monday 15th March) was a relief. The ABC News headlined the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology report that found the climate in Australia really has been warming over the last fifty years. http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/

We know the change which has happened in Burra over thirty years. 39 years is long enough to get climate data.

I was getting worried by the level of media coverage some of the nay sayers were getting.

Sunday reminded me that the inner and outer circles of status are not fixed, are not defined clearly. Who is on the outside looking in, and who is in the centre are not always easy to say. The prodigal son seems to be marginalised. But the father runs to greet him and bring him in. And the older son who has stayed at home, in the "centre", is now outside in the fields. But even here, the father goes outside to try to bring him in also.

Who is in the centre? The IPCC, James Hanson? Al Gore? or is it now the deniers, the Lord Monckton's who seem to be feted by the media. ...

Hopefully the steady statements of Bureau of Met and CSIRO people will show us who to believe. <sigh>

I am chasing up Clive Hamilton's columns written for The Drum Unleashed (on ABC) about Climate Denialists.

22 Feb http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2826189.htm Bullying, lies and the rise of right-wing climate denial
23 Feb http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2827047.htm Who is orchestrating the cyber-bullying?
24 Feb http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2828195.htm Think tanks, oil money and black ops

Where does the plethora, the deluge of climate denial come from? Why the push to make the ABC "politically correct" and to tone down their advocacy of the climate science? I was shocked by a comment from Alex Sloane on 666 local ABC radio last week in a (short) interview with James Hanson, that she had not heard anything from him or other scientists, that the scientists were quiet. I thought rather that the media were neither reading "New Scientist", or listening to their own "Science Show".

On the 23rd Hamilton wrote:

What drives denial?

What motivates the legion of climate deniers to send hate-mail? In recent years a great deal of evidence has come to light linking fossil fuel corporations with organisations that promote climate denial, but it would be a mistake to believe that the army of sceptical bloggers is in any sense in the pay of, or directly influenced by, the fossil fuel lobby.

Climate denialism has been absorbed by an older and wider political movement, sometimes called right-wing populism. Emanating from the United States, and defined more by what it fears than by what it proposes, the movement's enemies were helpfully listed in a 2004 TV ad attacking Democrat Howard Dean, whose supporters were characterised as a:

"tax hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show."
.....

In more recent years, the denial movement has been joined by some hard-line conservative Christian groups, including the notorious Catch the Fire Ministries and its witch-hunting pastor Danny Nalliah. According to Paul Colgan, these groups were heavily involved in the lobbying to have Tony Abbott elected as Liberal Party leader. ...

I am now wondering about connections between right wing denialism and religious fundamentalism.

As this suggests, becoming a denialist does not follow from carefully weighing up the evidence (that is, true scepticism) but from associating oneself with a cultural outlook, taking on an identity defined in opposition to a caricature of those who support action on climate change. It is the energy in this wider movement that has seen climate denialism morphing into a new form of political extremism.

Some active climate deniers possess a distinct "mindset" comprised of a certain worldview, including a narrative centered on secretive forces - variously encompassing elected leaders, scientists, scientific organisations, environmental groups and the United Nations - that are using climate science and climate policies as a cover to accumulate power with the objective of creating a world government that overrides national sovereignty and deprives citizens of their rights.

Those who hold to this worldview often feel marginalised and persecuted. It attracts the unstable and fanatical as well as those with more legitimate political grievances. For political leaders so inclined, the energy being mobilised by climate denial is a golden opportunity. Although it remains necessary for these leaders to evince a concern for the environment, and even to pretend to accept climate science, they can speak to the denialist minority using dog-whistling techniques to signal that they are really on their side.

I guess I will just have to accept the reality that Fred and I drink lattes (and chardonnay!), and we should be spending our money on a nice car rather than photo voltaics! But of course now we can actually expect to be making money from the panels. Does that make us "filthy capitalists?"

and this is the report to expose Exxon's contribution to the debate:
http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/global_warming/exxon_report.pdf

How can you see a future from within a box of matches?

2010-03-12T04:53:00.001-08:00

An article about the tunnels from Egypt to Gaza in the Electronic Intifada site. The worker interviewed, Abu Hanin had this comment:

I don't have a future. As it is, there is no future in Gaza. I go across the entire width of Gaza on my motorcycle in 20 minutes. How can you see a future from within a box of matches?

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11122.shtml

disagreements, reconciliation and Truth

2010-03-08T17:03:00.001-08:00

A Presidential address from the bishop of Liverpool to his synod has a gentle treatment of ethical disagreements within the Anglican church. It is an important way to start to think about such things!

Read it at: http://www.liverpool.anglican.org/index.php?p=1126

My experience of disagreement is usually that I or the other person (both) retreat back into our attitudes and don't examine them. But Lifeline counselling taught me to look for ambiguity. If you can expose an ambiguous statement and examine it then a deeper level of truth might be exposed. In a recent episode of Compass on ABC TV (http://www.abc.net.au/compass/s2820702.htm) Howard Jacobsen examined "Jesus the Jew". He taught me a lot about how young Jews are affected by my own religion.

But the big statement he made for me was that each religion has a truth about God that they hide behind and don't look to see the truth in the other. We all have some knowledge of god, but we don't acknowledge what others find of god.

If I disagree with another person, then finding out where they are coming from and why they think as they do is an important learning for me. But that also needs to be accompanied with me finding out why I think as I do. Then we might start to be able to hear one another. Then we might be able to go to another level of truth, or at least live with our differences.

Aung San Suu Kyi

2010-03-01T03:25:00.001-08:00

From Christy Moore's chat (newsletter): http://www.christymoore.com/christy_chat.php

"On 6th June there will be a special concert in the National Concert Hall to celebrate the 65th Birthday of Aung San Suu Kyi who remains under house arrest in Burma, held by the military junta. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. She is a leader of democratic opposition to the military dictatorship; she has dedicated her life to the achievement of democracy in Burma through peaceful means. She has suffered assassination attempts, mental torture and now endless incarceration. This event is the concept of Keith Donald with whom I worked in Moving Hearts. He has gathered together a group who share the same birth year as Aung San Suu Kyi and we all plan to honour her birthday with a night of music, poetry and song."

Interesting how a birth year can unite! We share so much that has shaped a generation. May the 1945ers find it a special year!

Australia and Israel: Questions.

2010-02-14T18:12:00.000-08:00

There is a question in the minds of many of my friends when we talk about Palestine and Israel and Australia. What really is the Australian position? I guess it is obvious, but is it coming from the experiences of those of us in primary school in the 1950's and Secondary school in the sixties; watching "Exodus" and hoping to go onto a kibbutz one day? Or is it Christian Zionism; or something else? Is it the politicians or the diplomats (or are they one and the same these days?) The final comment in this article makes those questions important! "...assistance from the Australian Embassy has brought up questions concerning Australia’s close relations with Israel."

http://tinyurl.com/yhtoljm

From the Alternative Information Centre comes this extra information:

"...Also speaking at the press conference were international solidarity activists Bridgette Chappell and Ariadna Jove Marti of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). Chappell and Jove were illegally detained by the Israeli army in Ramallah and released on bail earlier this week.
“We are not breaking any laws and are standing in solidarity with Palestinians in a non-violent and legal way,” said Chappell. ““The ISM media office in Ramallah was raided by the Israeli military last night at 3am, which was the second raid this week,” added Chappell. “The Israeli army clearly has no regard for the Oslo Accords and Area A, which is under full Palestinian control. These raids and arrests are meant to intimidate and harass us, to stop us from bearing witness to the Israeli human rights violations that help perpetuate the occupation,” stated Chappell. “However, it won’t work.”

Chappell and Jove believe their pending case before the Israeli Supreme Court will take 3-4 weeks, while they are also appealing in the Jerusalem District Court against the ruling that they are not allowed into the West Bank.
Attending the press conference were representatives from the Spanish and French consulates. Jove praised the support she has received to date from the Spanish Embassy and Consulate, while Chappell reflected that assistance from the Australian Embassy has brought up questions concerning Australia’s close relations with Israel."

The politics of maps

2010-02-11T15:30:00.001-08:00

I grew up with maps and atlases. I remember sitting on my father's lap and looking at the world! I grew up and became a geographer. Some years ago I heard a commentator talking about the political and military uses of maps. I had thought they were innocuous beautiful things that showed you the world. Yes, but also rivers, cities, passes; all very military. Now a geographer who maps Israeli settlements in the occupied territories has been banned from travel for six months. (Not a good situation for a geographer to be in!)
http://theonlydemocracy.org/2010/02/palestinian-expert-on-israeli-settlements-and-cartography-barred-from-travel/
The settlement maps do show how some Israelis are "eating up" Palestinian land.

As Australians hear of nightime raids on a local Canberran in Ramallah we are perhaps more aware of what is happening in Israel and Palestine.

Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill (Petition)

2010-02-05T09:30:00.001-08:00

A chance to take a stand!
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/uganda_christians/

The Petition
We call on Christians around the world, and particularly Christian leaders, to oppose the extreme and violent “Anti-Homosexuality Bill” proposed in Uganda. We call on the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, to end his silence on the matter, to condemn the bill in public and to urge Ugandan Christians to oppose it.

In addition to life imprisonment for consensual sexual activity between people of the same sex, the bill would introduce the death penalty for anyone whose same-sex partner is disabled. It would introduce imprisonment for anyone in authority – such as a priest or minister - who knew of homosexual activity but failed to report it.

Most Christians, who hold a range of views on sexual ethics, will be horrified by these measures. By speaking out, Christian leaders can expose the hollowness of the religious rhetoric used by the bill’s supporters. Given the place of Anglicanism in Uganda, it is important that Rowan Williams adds his voice to the opposition to the bill.

-------------
my comment:
"Christian voices must be raised around the world against this bill and those who use christianity to support such measures."

Links:
The leading organisation campaigning against the Bill in Uganda is:
Sexual Minorities Uganda - www.sexualminoritiesuganda.org
Christian organisations opposed to the Bill include:
Accepting Evangelicals - www.acceptingevangelicals.org
Changing Attitude - www.changingattitude.org.uk
Courage - www.courage.org.uk
Ekklesia - www.ekklesia.co.uk
Inclusive Church - www.inclusivechurch2.net
Integrity Canada - www.integritycanada.org
Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement - www.lgcm.org.uk

There is Another Way.

2010-02-01T18:26:00.001-08:00

There is Another Way.

This image is from The Sunday Canberra TImes of February 16th 2003 with a report of the massive peace protest outside Parliament House on Saturday 15th.

But when war is the way chosen what does that do to the combatants? My friend Michael (http://michaelcardensjottings.blogspot.com/) has a link on his blog to a story by Anand Gopal found in The Asia Times Online (SouthAsia) http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LA30Df01.html "Terror comes at night in Afghanistan".

Read it and weep. There are other ways to combat human rights abuses. The courts, or simply education. Why don't we use them? War diminishes, demeans and brutalises everyone. That includes the societies who engage in it.

All creatures great and small

2010-01-31T05:04:00.001-08:00

"He prayeth best, who loveth best
All creatures great and small."

Many thanks to Marcia who reminded me of these lines near the end of the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner". There is certainly something spiritual, if not supernatural, about connecting with the wildlife who live around the house I live in. The skinks (Egernia cunninghamia) are in Fred's rock wall or close by. Some years ago I spent many hours with them, especially with the first adult male who had made tracks over the paddock to come onto the house site after building was finished. The rock had been blasted and the wall begun. A slight tip on his tail had him easily recognised, and we got close. I observed things like the gatherings that happened as birthing was to take place. Since those days (20 years ago?) their fortunes have waxed and waned. We are not always here; I misread the signs of dryness and heat, thinking that this year the garden is growing well after good spring rains. But last year's youngsters are very rarely seen, if indeed those very few sightings are not simply me hallucinating! It is still dry. It has certainly been hot. (The hottest January on record and 4degrees hotter than average.) The animals around us know it. In the heat I do not go out and sit with those who live here on the outside. I miss the stillness and that attitude of prayer that was perhaps in Coleridge's mind as he wrote these lines. Talking and singing with the magpies is the closest relationship, but rather "busy" as well as I sort out sunflower seeds for Caruso, and currants for "Aunty" (the mother) and then disappear quietly inside so that the male can come and take some of the food.

But watching the small birds is a delight and a wonder. Wrens fluffing up in the bird bath and spraying water everywhere. Again, we have not seen as much of their youngsters this year. A clear sign perhaps that this has been an extremely dry January here, and the world is suffering. Even insects seem to be scarce. A couple of weeks ago we were watching the Banjo frog (Limnodynastes interioris) despatching a couple of ants and a beetle and trying to catch a spider at the back door. This week there are very few moths, or anything, attracted to the light at the door. I must cultivate a deeper prayerfulness and attention in these times of loving connection to the denizens of yulungaburra!

"He prayeth best, who loveth best
All creatures great and small."

Four wasted decades

2010-01-29T15:07:00.000-08:00

http://changingattitude-england.blogspot.com/2010/01/four-wasted-decades-anglican-inability.html

Colin Coward has a great piece here on the history of the Anglican church's engagement with homosexuality.
I do remember hearing at the coffee table one Synod a comment "now we have let the women in, who is next? the gays?", well something like that. It must have been twenty years ago. So someone in Canberra and Goulburn had started to think about the issue then. <sigh>

Maybe it is time to revisit that crude comment overheard years ago and to ask who is Jesus supping with these days?

Flies in the ointment? scripture and doctrine.

2010-01-18T17:14:00.001-08:00

Two flies in the ointment - on inclusivity, doctrine and scripture. A piece by Richard Lambert
http://www.inclusivechurch2.net/index.php?id=12873

This article on The Inclusive Church site seems to me to have more to say than the writer intended. While it speaks specifically to a church in danger of becoming exclusive and putting up the barriers, it talks also of issues that we have been struggling with in the small group I have been in that is thinking about Palestine and Israel and finding out a bit about Christian Zionism. The questions which are raised are what do we do with the bible, with the biblical text, and Richard also asks "what about doctrine?"

to look at the conclusion first:

"...Exclusivists are not playing games: they really do believe that they have a mission to save the world from the three abominations of secularism, pluralism, and relativism, which they see as co-terminous. And if history tells us anything at all it is that ideologues on a mission are dangerous. The two flies in the ointment are fast growing into an army of locusts."

Yesterday I had a phone call from a young man called Chris. He seemed ok, wasn't asking for money, just wanted to say something. I held on and heard that I was going to hell. I'm a bit sorry that I was about to leave the house when I got the call and simply gave my "christian credentials" to him rather than finding out and talking with him some more. But going the web site he mentioned I find the traditional catholics who know (who know) that the pope is a heretic (will join me in hell no doubt) and that the church has been wrong since Vatican II. (and Anglicans since 1660?) So we shrug our shoulders and let him get on with hopefully meaningless telephoning.

But in the meantime, Ugandans are being stirred up to hate (and murder) homosexuals with the bible on their side (as the men who murdered Matthew Shepard (in Laramie, Ohio) "knew"); and fundamentalists are taking the land that god has given them from Palestinian villagers who have been farming land for generations; and others are planning bombings and any way they can to shake us out of our consumptive (Western) affluenza. <sigh>

Richard Lambert focuses on two problems for the church. One is the ignorance of scripture; ignorance of the status of scripture. What is this text? It is not a science text book, nor is it a (flawed) journalistic account or an English Essay. It is an attempt to understand, spread over three or four thousand years. And that understanding is changing and growing. It is "work in progress". Lambert says that doctrine is similarly being developed.

As someone who is wedded to Anglican liturgical practice I baulk a little (tiny little bit) at this. But then, I remember that I started with the 1927 prayer book with its diocesan amended booklet (All Saint's Ainslie practice in the 1950's and 1960's); moved to a newer prayer book in the seventies (from which turmoil of change Evan Burge's Thanksgiving Prayer translation of Hippolytus' Great Thanksgiving has now entered our tool box); ... I have used three different hymn books (as well as finding jewels in my grandfather's Methodist Hymn book and collecting many song books); soo, "how many Anglicans does it take to change a light bulb?... none, because they don't change". well, it's wrong, we do... It actually doesn't take very long to memorise new prayers in a liturgical practice. The clue is "practice"...

To make this blog less of a rant; where am I going? If I argue with someone about women's ministry or homosexuality then I am often reduced to using their methods of argument, of using proof texts, using the bible in a way that is alien to me.

Richard writes: "Texts about divorce or love of money are seen nowadays as highly flexible, while those about homosexuality or women bishops (being minority concerns) are set in concrete.""

Last Sunday I read the first lesson, Isaiah proclaiming relief to the downtrodden and exiled Jerusalemites. "Your land will no more be called barren... it shall be "married".".. as a proof text it means one thing to a modern Israeli, another to a disempowered, landless Palestinian. But to humanity in this globalised world, it means hope. It isn't simply the way we read a text, it is where we read that text from and what other experience and knowledge we bring to it.

To be an inclusive church is to be a church which has its eyes and its heart open. Wide Open. Open to many thoughts and experiences, polupoikilos... many coloured. Not a church damning us all to hell. But a church inviting us to heaven!

internet nanny?

2010-01-18T04:59:00.001-08:00

http://www.zdnet.com.au/insight/communications/soa/Don-t-rely-on-filters-be-better-parents/0,139023754,339300452,00.htm?omnRef=1337&omnRef=1337

Canon Dr Ray Cleary writes about the proposed net nanny internet filter. It reflects a conversation in the car this afternoon about who is responsible for road safety? So often these days governments (state governments usually) are blamed for not fixing the road. But you fix the road and we drive faster, so maybe the danger level stays the same! Drive to the conditions is not said often enough.

Dr Cleary is the head of Anglicare Victoria. he writes:

"Some commentators may fear an over-regulated nanny-state or Big Brother scenario, but I fear too many Australians are coming to rely on government restrictions in place of family and community values and expectations.
We demand a progressive democracy, but are shying away from the responsibility of ensuring those around us exercise their rights conscientiously without being exploitative or degrading of other members of the community."

Dr Cleary also asks: "what are the safety nets and accountability structures in place to prevent present and future governments censoring a range of political views, opinions and expressions which they find politically unacceptable...?" This is a question that I also have about ASIO's security findings on asylum seekers. Their adverse findings on refugees are very few, but who do they actually answer to? Does the minister or the Prime Minister have a final say on who is deemed a security risk? Their is no way to appeal the finding, there is no arbitrator. It is a final and terrible judgement.

Religion, power and Palestine and Israel (and the US)

2010-01-18T00:00:00.000-08:00

An article in The Canberra Times by Crispin Hull. In the small group I am attending which is looking at biblical issues and Palestine, I am learning even more about English Protestants in the nineteenth century (and earlier). People like my grandmother's great-grandfathers in Cranbrook, Kent. The family there (Dobells and Crofts) were firey protestant preacher types. But be that as it may, Crispin's article raises many issues and the general issue of religion and politics needs to be examined. We need to recognise the power of religious views, and use that power responsibly. Not wielding it like a sledge hammer, but with gentle care and with eyes (and hearts) wide open.

http://www.crispinhull.com.au/2010/01/09/religion-behind-us-military-support-for-israel/#more-9503

Epiphany

2010-01-05T04:51:00.001-08:00

There is a sermon and a meditation on our parish web site that might inspire epiphanous thoughts. Jeannette's 2004 epiphany sermon reminds us of the journey, the incredible mind blowing journey that was taken by the magi, and she uses TS Eliot's poetry. Linda's 2008 Good Friday meditation also uses this poem and some others. birth, and death, beginning and ending, alpha and omega...
(Jeannette's sermon) http://stphilipsoconnor.org.au/sermons/5Jan2004_JM.html
(Linda's meditation) http://stphilipsoconnor.org.au/sermons/Good_Friday_Meditation2008_LA.html

The Journey of the Magi

"A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter."
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires gong out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty, and charging high prices.:

A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,

And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.

Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.

But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we lead all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I have seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

The creative word

2010-01-04T04:03:00.001-08:00

http://www.stphilipsoconnor.org.au/sermons/03January2010_RN.html

Rebecca's sermon for the 3rd of January. She had a great passage to work with, (John1) but brought many ideas to it.

It cut through me like a knife on Sunday. Pushing in the pressure points that release gnarled and knotted muscle. I am still not sure what to do with it though. But at least I've got it on the web now! I should read it again. Or should I just go and act on it?

Rebecca reminded me that the Word (logos) is also dabar; the creative word. I have found since returning from Jerusalem and Palestine last year, that talking about the experience allowed me to process it more strongly and understand more. Conversation, telling of story, created a bigger meaning (and hopefully allowed that meaning to be communicated!) We need to continue to tell those stories. Not just the Palestinian and also the Israeli story, but the Australian settler and indigenous stories, the Women in Black stories and our own stories. Hopefully with conversation, not simply a monologue. or monoblog...

So here is that paragraph from Rebecca Newland's sermon at St Philip's on 3rd January 2919:

The Greek word for Word is "logos" from which we get our word, logic. In Greek philosophy at the time it referred to universal divine reason. This divine reason was an eternal and unchanging truth present from the time of creation. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus used the word logos to refer to a rational divine intelligence, which today is sometimes referred to in scientific discourse as the "mind of God." But the writer of John's Gospel was also well versed in Hebrew scripture and thought. In Hebrew the word for "Word" is 'dabar'. "Dabar" is not just a noun, the name for something. Dabar is a verb and it means something that is active and creative. So when God speaks at the beginning of Genesis, his words create – earth and heavens, stars and moons, animals and plants and humans. When John writes of Jesus as the Word he is describing Jesus as a creative, generative power. One way to look at it this passage– and one more in keeping with John's idea – is that if God is the idea, them the word is what speaks the idea. And this word creates. If God is love then Jesus is loving and a loving that creates a reality.
http://www.stphilipsoconnor.org.au/sermons/03January2010_RN.html

Climate change cooperation and fundamentalism

2010-01-02T05:21:00.001-08:00

Lord May on the Science Show today (2nd Jan 2010); I think he was talking about Game Theory but also thinking about how religion keeps a society together but how religious fundamentalism arises as we have trouble adapting to changed circumstances. He is actually talking about global warming, but says: "I see the rise of fundamentalism both in the east and in the west, as a reaction to the changes we need."

Furthermore, we need not only to cooperate, but to cooperate in equitable proportion. We need to be coming down to a level of carbon input that across the world would amount to an average of 50% reduction. But that means in Britain, and that's why we set our targets, an 80% reduction. It means we're coming down to it and we're allowing for China and India to move up to it, so more slowly than they're heading.
You've always got to keep that in mind when you hear that someone, the Americans are thinking of maybe doing 80%. That means they're only doing half as much as us, cause they're starting from being twice as bad. Huge inequities. It's not just rhetoric to say that we are already seeing the incivilities that the problems of too many people and too much impact per person are putting on the land....

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2010/2778548.htm#transcript worth reading or listening to!

Electricity

2009-12-30T19:02:00.001-08:00

The cleanest (and cheapest) energy is the energy that you don't use!
Reading energymatters.com.au Fred found that the average consumption of electricity by households in Australia is 8MegaWatts!
Our consumption here adds up to 1.46MegaWatts (precisely!) Apart from a deep freeze, and air conditioner, (both missing in this house) I don't know what people use the stuff for...

In the meantime, (while waiting for our generating capacity to be nearly doubled), we are trying to understand how the feed in tariff that is being introduced in NSW will work. Seems we will have to change our meter. (even though Fred reads the inputs and outputs from the new one that went in after the first panels.)

We don't hold out much hope of actually being paid money for the electricity we will put into the grid. (to run our neighbours' air conditioners.)

It would have been nice, but then again we didn't put in the system to make money. Just to make a point. (very expensively)

The musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of immeasurable value,

2009-12-26T20:10:00.001-08:00

"...the musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of immeasurable value, greater even than that of any other art...The treasure of sacred music is to be preserved and fostered with very great care.” This is a quote from the second Vatican Council. Found in the Irish Times for yesterday.

Arminta Wallace writes of the burgeoning of choral works over the (pre) christmas season and the crowds that go to concerts and lessons and carols (and other) services. She is focussing on Milltown Parish church in Dublin which boasts a professional choir. I am thinking that St Philips is fortunate to attract almost professional singers and musicians to its many choral events and times, as well as our two actual professional musicians.

"Meanwhile, for choir and congregation alike, the Christmas Eve Mass is an annual musical and spiritual high point. “There’s always a beautiful atmosphere at that Mass,” she says. “It’s magical. I always feel there’s a sense of expectancy – but also a quiet, almost contemplative feeling as well as the joy at the coming of Jesus. That’s my personal feeling about Christmas Eve, anyway, and I suppose I would try and capture that in the music for the service.” .....

But sacred choral music is also part of the tradition. As we tune in to Christmas music this year, in whatever form and at whatever level we can, maybe – if we listen carefully – its other-worldly beauty might give us some clues as to how the human species can face, with dignity and compassion, a future which seems at best uncertain. It will undoubtedly – if we listen carefully – give us plenty of food for spiritual thought.

it's an article worth the reading...
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2009/1224/1224261230623.html

Christmas greetings

2009-12-25T01:41:00.001-08:00

A Christmas letter to download. (180 and 140KBs)
http://members.tip.net.au/~lindafrd/AnchellChristmas2009a.pdf
http://members.tip.net.au/~lindafrd/AnchellChristmas2009b.pdf

I greet you this day. If you are celebrating this christmastide, I would be glad of a greeting at lindafrd_AT_pcug.org.au (replace the _AT_ with the usual.

Christmas starts today, and we celebrate until 6th January (epiphany) with the arrival of the kings at Bethlehem. Perhaps this year I should be making the French gateau de rois with the little crowns on top and the treasure (trinket) within!

The cost of Copenhagen

2009-12-22T15:24:00.001-08:00

George Monbiot might be one of the "new believers", but I listen to him.
see his Guardian column this week after Copenhagen. (it is at http://tinyurl.com/yep8gdt}

He concludes by saying:

"So what happens now? That depends on the other non-player at Copenhagen: you. For the past few years good people have shaken their heads and tutted and wondered why someone doesn't do something. Yet the number taking action has been pathetic. Demonstrations that should have brought millions on to the streets have struggled to mobilise a few thousand. As a result, the political cost of the failure at Copenhagen is zero."

I have always felt that on this issue I can take my own direct action. "The cleanest energy is the bit you don't use." (as well as the solar generation we put into the grid. But I don't go to the demonstrations. <sigh> There is more I should be doing. (when it gets cooler?)

When the song of the angels is stilled

2009-12-22T00:45:00.001-08:00

Goshen College Advent Calendar (http://blog.goshen.edu/devotions) has this poem quoted by Odelet Nance.

This poem by theologian and civil rights leader Howard Thurman reminds us to share the music in the heart and our blessings.

“When the song of the angels is stilled,
when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with their flock,

The work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost, to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among brothers,
to make music in the heart.”

[http://blog.goshen.edu/devotions/2009/dec-18-music-in-the-heart/]

Hark da Herald Kittehs Sing

2009-12-19T04:40:00.000-08:00

can't resist this one! A special for christmas.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

and the Michelago fire (mentioned in yesterday's blog) is now being "mopped up" having gone further east and being for Burra a wakeup call. Everyone that I talked to has tested their pumps and fire procedures. It was a high cost for Tinderry people.

Michelago fire

2009-12-17T03:19:00.001-08:00

Just a personal note. There is a fire going east of Michelago that we saw as smoke to the south of us early this afternoon. It is now in the Tinderry Nature Reserve and in the bushland. One house has been lost. We are very aware of the community down there but also heard (just on the ABC TV 7pm news) that a wind change might come through the night that might threaten Burra Valley. Not nice to hear of your very own community in those bulletins! Friends a little further to the south are in more danger. But to put minds at rest; our new fire pump is attached to the tank which has quite a lot of water in it and the pump does work! My own little bag is packed; Fred's isn't.... the southern side of the house is probably the safest and although it might be the change of weather that might bring the fire (embers might well be a problem) at least the weather is forecast to change! We hope for a down pour tonight; especially on the fire as it is now. (Fred had pumped up water this afternoon to have a bit more room in the lower tanks for rainfall.... now we might need those tanks full for fire fighting! :-) I don't think you can win either way!

A history lesson

2009-12-13T14:35:00.000-08:00

from Uri Avnery

http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1260658441

photos of Middle East trip

2009-12-13T01:08:00.001-08:00

Christine and Geoff's photos of the (dis)organised trip I was on in
September, are on line at:
http://www.geoffandchris.com./Us/Middle_East_Photos.html.

a few picks:
me on camel:
http://www.geoffandchris.com./Us/Middle_East_Photos.html#11
Bethlehem, Aida Refugee camp. (mural http://www.geoffandchris.com./Us/Middle_East_Photos.html#84) There is also a huge key on the gate. It is a reminder of the key that so many carried away as they fled their homes. Will they ever return? (The young children can; They have a book of photos taken by grandchildren after hearing their grandparents' stories of home. ("Dreams of Home", created by the children of the Lajee Center with Rich Wiles.) see also:http://www.lajee.org/english/main.cfm their web site.

my photos are at:
http://members.tip.net.au/~lindafrd/Tourist.html
http://members.tip.net.au/~lindafrd/Political.html
http://members.tip.net.au/~lindafrd/Pilgrim.html
http://members.tip.net.au/~lindafrd/Pilgrim2.html

love and marriage (Indian)

2009-12-11T19:15:00.001-08:00

Brian's blog at http://www.nottoomuch.com/ alerted me to the Nationa Council of Churches in India Roundtable discussion on sexuality. I had heard about it but not seen the text. http://www.nccindia.in/news/pressrelease/n_144.htm Two paragraphs stand out for me.

After those two, the third paragraph recognises that our sexualities can be very different. It is good to see both ideas in almost the same breath. To my mind, this Delhi message gives the best "argument" for allowing marriage to apply to same sex couples. Why some christian lobbyists disagree is beyond me.

"We affirm that sexuality is a divine gift, and hence God intends us to celebrate this divine gift in committed, consensual, and monogamous relationships. It is in such celebrations of our sexuality that we grow into the fullness of our humanity, and experience God in a special way.

We believe that our negative attitudes towards sexuality and our body-denying spirituality stem from our distorted understanding of God’s purpose for us. The embodied God who embraced flesh in Jesus Christ is the ground for us to love our bodies and to celebrate life and sexuality without abuse and misuse. So God invites us to experience sexual fulfillment in our committed relationships of justice-love with the commitment to be vulnerable, compassionate, and responsible.
We recognize that there are people with different sexual orientations. The very faith affirmation that the whole human community is created in the image of God irrespective of our sexual orientations makes it imperative on us to reject systemic and personal attitudes of homophobia and discrimination against sexual minorities. We consider the Delhi High Court verdict to "decriminalize consensual sexual acts of adults in private" upholding the fundamental constitutional and human rights to privacy and the life of dignity and non-discrimination of all citizens as a positive step."

Israel annexing East Jerusalem

2009-12-10T04:27:00.001-08:00

A European Union report on East Jerusalem is at:

http://australiansforpalestine.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/EU-Report-Nov2009-1.pdf

it concludes after discussing the effects on Christians in Old Jerusalem with this phrase:

about Jerusalem's "iconic significance as a place where civilizations meet rather than clash."

The meeting of civilizations (well, the three faiths of the book) was what I experienced in my meanderings around the old city.

I found this report very disturbing, but really saying everything that we had been told and that was "under the surface" in Jerusalem.

http://australiansforpalestine.com/breaking-news-israel-annexing-east-jerusalem-says-eu

The only strange comment I saw was about Israel letting in an influx of tourists onto the Dome of the Rock (Haram al-Sharif); without any control by Islamic authorities. That was not the experience that Fred and I had 12 years ago, being unable to get in then. This year the various holidays confused things and meant that no one from our group was able to enter. My suspicion of the tramway is still there.

The Guardian also has a report at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/07/israel-palestine-eu-report-jerusalem

James Hansen on Copenhagen

2009-12-07T04:31:00.001-08:00

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/12/outspoken-us-climate-scientist.html

"This is analogous to the issue of slavery faced by Abraham Lincoln or the issue of Nazism faced by Winston Churchill. On those kind of issues you cannot compromise. You can't say let's reduce slavery, let's find a compromise and reduce it 50% or reduce it 40%."

Swiss referendum

2009-12-06T02:59:00.001-08:00

A Comment on this web site about the Swiss referendum has this quote from Goebbels. I have often railed against "democracy" since it sometimes seems to pander to our worst side. (campaigns that seek to minimise hits to the hip pocket nerve as well as campaigning to keep our borders secure against the hordes.)

While I am fiercely protective of our system of democracy, I accept that it is not a perfect system at all.

http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1260035333

By the way, the Swiss referendum should give pause to those who have been tempted to think that the system of referendums is preferable to the Parliamentary system. A referendum opens the gates to the vilest demagogues, the pupils of Joseph Goebbels, who once wrote: "We must appeal again to the most primitive instincts of the masses."

A Greens senator speaks

2009-11-29T18:58:00.001-08:00

I have just read Senator Scott Ludlum's speech on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill (that's the ETS Bill that is tearing the liberals apart)... and I am impressed with this paragraph:

Senators here would have heard me speak before about narrow military notions of military security and the extraordinary theft of resources from
genuine tools of security. Military security can do nothing to alleviate the greatest security challenge of our age, which is climate change.
Traditional tools of warfare are of absolutely no help at all when confronted by a tsunami, a hurricane, a flood, a virus or a water shortage.
The acquisition of arms and the current global military expenditure of $1.2 trillion a year still diverts enormous financial, technical and human
resources from where they are really needed.

Yes, I am a Green and a member of the party, but I am usually a bit "ho hum" on the way we argue "the case". But Scott is saying things here which need to be said. In a world that seems to have no limit on what we spend on toys for boys (we saw them gathered around a helicopter at Russell last week); and no limit on what we might dish out to keep the world financial system melting down...

in such a world, what is there to be done?

An artist's view of Copenhagen

2009-11-26T15:20:00.001-08:00

What an article!

Michelangelo and my kids will haunt me
Bronwyn Lay November 23, 2009

In Eureka Street.
(http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=17720 or http://tinyurl.com/yjbfho5)

I have never had children, but Bronwyn's comments about motherhood and where it leads her take my breath away. It is really worth reading the whole article, but here is a small taster of what she says:

"If everyone at the Bella Center in Copenhagen in December was overwhelmed by the sorrow of ‘The Pieta’, the sorrow of the powerless, then the outcome would be brutal. Emissions would be cut by 100% the next day. We would be thrown into war-time mobilisation because everything we thought we had created would seem irrelevant compared to the pain millions of ‘The Pieta’s’ were facing. Economies would go into transitional panic. Monies would be diverted to the developing nations at the coalface. Whole industries would collapse and geopolitics would be thrown into a spin. This will not happen because ‘The Pieta’ being inscribed in every mind at that table is too revolutionary a thought, too irrational, and too sentimental."

It appeals to my "political side". More of her writing is artistic.

Fragmentation of Palestine

2009-11-23T15:58:00.001-08:00

A video to watch:
http://www.afsc.org/israel-palestine/ht/display/ContentDetails/i/76850

Graphically shows how the West Bank is being fragmented. I have the
postcards, but seeing it on a video is very strong!

Echidna visitor

2009-11-22T05:50:00.001-08:00

Much excitement on Friday when an echidna came around the corner. (I was hanging out the washing and watching a skink sunning itself, of trying to survive a very hot day.) Skink, took off, fast. It went past me and echidna came on right by the back door. She got stopped under a copper pipe which is an inch off the ground; went back and under a heavy bag of recycling. I lifted that up and it turned around and went back onto the western verandah and under some old solar hot water panels that lean against that wall. There it stayed and proceeded to burrow down. A few hours later it had shoveled dirt over itself, eventually disappearing with dirt right over it! Stayed all day Saturday while we were at the fair and it was still there Sunday morning. But the dirt was off it then.

The echidna has left us. It was not here when we returned on Sunday night. I just checked it again, and it might have made a tunnel!

I have been looking on the web for information and I suspect that the main reason for being visited was that it was such a hot day (Thursday). They do not like the heat and will burrow or find caves etc to escape it.

They mate in winter, lay an egg about 22 days later, incubate for 10 days. When about 7 weeks old they start to grow spines. Then they are put in a nursery burrow. Mother returns every 5-10 days to feed it. At 7 months they are weaned and left on their own.

So if it is a nursery burrow, she should come back every few days.
They have a huge range as well. Goannas and cats and dogs are the main puggle enemies.

So we might be in for a very interesting few months, or maybe it was just a one off!

http://www.abc.net.au/science/scribblygum/June2000/default.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/schoolstv/animals/ECHIDNAS.htm
http://www.fourthcrossingwildlife.com/echidna_puggle.htm

Did Charles Darwin free christianity to be true to itself?

2009-11-22T05:39:00.001-08:00

Today was the feast of Christ the King. But as Ray pointed out, the message is: "My kingdom is not of this world."

Tonight I watched (cursorily) a program on Charles Darwin and the controversy that he stirred up with the publication of "The Origin of the Species" (150 years ago?) 24th Nov 1859?)

We take it so much for granted these days. I am so aware of the personalities of the non humans around me here in Burra that I forget that sense that homo sapiens is something else, not quite "natural"; certainly not descended from apes!

Did that christian sense that our species is so special stop us from recognising god's love for the whole creation? Did demolishing that allow us to read the scriptures with new eyes and see a much larger "god"? A much larger saviour....

This evening, I was thinking it was a liberation of the church from the Constantinian capture of church into state power.

Demoting "man" from his pedestal (gender specific language is deliberate) allows us to see the Son of Man as enosh; the weak one who saves through the cross, not through state power; not through soldiers fighting for him.

Photos

2009-11-17T03:03:00.001-08:00

Photos and comments from the Middle East trip in September 2009 are now on line.

http://members.tip.net.au/~lindafrd/Tourist.html
http://members.tip.net.au/~lindafrd/Political.html

http://members.tip.net.au/~lindafrd/Pilgrim.html
http://members.tip.net.au/~lindafrd/Pilgrim2.html

We don't need more fundamentalism

2009-11-16T18:57:00.001-08:00

Colin Coward posted a new blog at Changing Attitude. http://changingattitude-england.blogspot.com/2009/11/hope-in-god-despair-at-conservative.html

He finishes off by saying:

Conservatives think they are defending God and protecting Christianity whereas in reality they are doing exactly the opposite, in the UK and North America as well, ultimately, in Africa, Asia and South America. The world does not need more biblical fundamentalism, back to basics or ‘the clear Word of God’ which will transform society overnight. It needs people with prophetic vision and a passion for truth and love, people whose lives are rooted in prayerful awareness of the revelation of God in Scripture, through Jesus Christ, and in myriad, mystical, tender ways in creation and the practice of the presence of God in daily life.

I comment on my time in Jerusalem that you can see visions of heaven as so many of the world's people gather there in pilgrimage of various kinds. But when one group says "this is fundamentally mine"; we make of that place a hell. (Remember that the Crusaders said that for christians once.)
An answer to fundamentalism might be the way for peace.
I guess that wars are fought when one group says "I am right; you are wrong".
An openness to ambiguity and paradox is needed to avoid that.

some new photos on line now.

2009-11-06T18:45:00.000-08:00

http://members.tip.net.au/~lindafrd/Political.html

Political with some commentary. yes, one is also on the touristy site. Just shows you that classification is an inexact science. (Yes, that was what I studied in University many, many years ago!)

I said I would post the Armenian Genocide Poster text:

see also:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide

RECOGNITION, CONDEMNATION, PREVENTION

The Armenian Genocide is a term used to designate a series of crimes and atrocities committed against the Armenian people during WW1. The events were centrally planned and administered by the Turkish government against the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire.

Between the years 1915 and 1923 the Armenian people were subjected to mass deportation from their ancestral homeland of Armenia and other parts of the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish authorities also carried out deliberate starvation of the deportees, systematic massacres along the deportation routes, and the government sanctioned rape of men, women and children as well as the forced Islamization of orphaned children.

In addition to efforts to annihilate the Armenians, the entire national wealth of the Armenian population was looted by the Turks or confiscated by Ottoman authorities through the enactment of "abandoned properties" laws applicable specifically to Armenians.

The decision to implement the crime of genocide against the Armenian people was made by the Committee of Union and Progress, also known as the Young Turks, the political party that ruled the Ottoman Empire from 1908 to 1918. In addition to avert actions of Young Turk officials with armed elements of the Ministry of War and the Ministry of the Interior, Turkish authorities created a secret outfit called the Special Organization (Teshkilati Mahsusa) whose primary functions were to carry out the deportation and mass slaughter of the Armenians.

The Turkish Nationalists between 1920 and 1923 perpetrated further massacres, expulsions, and depredations of the surviving Armenians. The Kemalist government who toppled the Young Turks and represented a new political movement, shared the common ideology of the Ottoman Empire and the Young Turks to create a new Turkey built on the ashes of over 1.5 million Armenians and their homeland that had been Armenian for the previous 3000 years.

To this day, the Turkish government has denied the genocide, and the crime remains unpunished.

APRIL 24 - THE MEMORIAL DAY OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

LEGEND OF THE MAP

Red coloured circles: Relative number of Armenians massacred (exact figures are not known)

small red circle: Deportation control center

circle: Deportation concentration and annihilation centers

tiny circle: Deportation stations

Areas of greater or lesser Armenian resistance

red arrows: Major and minor deportation route

dotted arrows: Armenian and Assyrian escape routes

Blue crosses: Localities where the Constantinople Armenian intellectuals were murdered.

The Goldstone report on Gaza

2009-11-05T02:55:00.001-08:00

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10232009/transcript3.html
An interview with Judge Richard Goldstone by Bill Moyers of pbs (Public Broadcasting Service).

He says:

Well, certainly. You know, one thing one can't say about the Israel Defense Forces is that they make too many mistakes. They're very, a sophisticated army. And if they attack a mosque or attack a factory, and over 200 factories were bombed, there's just no basis to ascribe that to error. That must be intentional.

and later:

I think it's difficult to deal equally with a state party, with a sophisticated army, with the sort of army Israel has, with an air force and a navy, and the most sophisticated weapons that are not only in the arsenal of Israel, but manufactured and exported by Israel, on the one hand, with Hamas using really improvised, imprecise armaments. So it's difficult to equate their power. But that having been said, one has to look at the actions of each. And one has to judge the criminality, or the alleged criminality, of each.

They chose 36 incidents to investigate. Israel did not cooperate at all. This interview explains some of the objections to his report.
Read it for yourself (575 pages!) from http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/specialsession/9/docs/UNFFMGC_Report.pdf
Yes, the Human Rights Council show bias. But Goldstone in his interview with Bill Moyers discusses that. He is not the kind of man to operate in a biased environment.

Hospitality and All Souls

2009-11-02T10:50:00.001-08:00

For All Saint's All Soul's Day(s) I highly recommend Michael's blog:
http://michaelcardensjottings.blogspot.com/2009/11/all-saints-day-reflections-hospitality.html where he talks about hospitality and the queer community. I wanted to quote some but he really should be read in full. But as a taste he has in his conclusion:

"Hospitality is what makes God divine."

On All Souls day I was in Sydney celebrating Bonnie's life. She was a great friend from many years ago who was just so good at hospitality. It was a very real privilege to be at her memorial service and also to have been asked to sing. It was a song she heard me singing and she had told me last year that I was to sing it! "A new commandment I give unto you". I felt that in many ways there was a message from Bonnie herself in it that we could all hear. (I hope).

Thank you Bon, for giving me that job to do and for the great memories we have of your eight years (really only eight?) in Burra as such a wonderful neighbour.

photos

2009-10-31T02:21:00.001-07:00

http://members.tip.net.au/~lindafrd/Tourist.html

Some touristy photos from the trip. Larger versions are available if you email me!

I will put comments up. I found out on Thursday night as I talked after the presentation about the middle east trip, that I was thinking and reflecting even more as I told my story. It is a counselling technique to retell story and "make it thicker"; to make the rope stronger. Thank you to those who listen.

Water and Heaven and Hell

2009-10-29T17:26:00.001-07:00

Amnesty's report on the situation of Palestinian and Israeli water resources has been summarised in Ekklesia. Thank you to Brian for a link to this. Last night I heard some of the statistics from Patricia. I was at the reporting back night of the tour group that went to Israel and Palestine in September. There we had heard from Rich in the Bethlehem refugee camp we went to about Israel "turning on the tap" for a few hours every week or so (or every month or so). Now Amnesty has it documented. The report is to be found at http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE15/027/2009/en/e9892ce4-7fba-469b-96b9-c1e1084c620c/mde150272009en.pdf

The evening of reporting was wonderful with 63 people attending. Thank you to everyone! It was a good time to be telling stories and those stories need to be told. As they are told they gain strength. I told a couple of people of my wonderful time in the crowds at the Damascus Gate. I realised that I needed to go out again (this was just before Eid; a very busy time!) I could not have easily walked through the old city to the hotel. It was much quieter outside the wall. But the crowd! I saw a very large young man, an orthodox jew, going out and I walked behind him. But he could not get through. Some Palestinian workers saw him struggling and they were taking pallets out on their shoulders... they beckoned him to follow. We got through. :-)

It seems to me that the crowds and pilgrims of three faiths are a vision of heaven. When we acknowledge one another, when we help each other, when we mill around and enjoy festivals from all over... in Jerusalem people from Indonesia, New Zealand, China, India; we all meet... it is heaven.

and we make of it a hell....

Bob Ellis on ABC "Unleashed"

2009-10-28T03:35:00.001-07:00

wow! A Bob Ellis tirade against Confidently Asserted Untruth.

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2725644.htm

a taste:

"More and more as the boat people come we see how wrong our judgments are. People who keep their children in the camps, we are told, are good people. People who try to give their children a better life in Australia are bad people. It's right for them to wait until their children are criminalised or dead in the filthy, hopeless conditions of the camps. It's wrong for them to get them to a good high school in Australia, because they have 'jumped a queue'. It's better for them to stay in Sri Lanka till their enemies kill them. That's the right thing to do.

...

We believe any family whose house burns down should get the insurance money for it, but not if the Israeli Defence Force burns it down. We believe the three hundred children killed by hostile fire in Gaza were justly killed because bad men were near them. We believe Israelis can kill bad people without bringing them to trial, though Israel is a 'democracy'. We believe Israel has a license to kill, but Arabs who try to kill Israelis are 'terrorists'. We believe Hamas should 'renounce violence' but not Israel. We believe Israel can have secret atomic bombs but not Iran."

and then of course there is the opportunity to join Bob in a rant as the comments show.. But it is good to see this being said!

gender roles and angry conservatism....

2009-10-27T06:07:00.001-07:00

Brian's blog http://www.nottoomuch.com/pivot/entry.php?id=1843 has a comment on the Vatican's overtures to disaffected Anglican clergymen. (deliberately gender specific.) He quotes the Church Times' Editorial of 23 October 2009. One paragraph in particular caught my attention:

This much broader struggle within Christianity at first sight appears to be about sex. Throughout the world, the most easily heard tone in religion (not just Christianity) is of a generally angry conservatism. Why? I hazard that the anger centres on a profound shift in gender roles traditionally given a religious significance and validated by religious traditions. . . .

I don't think that I had actually noticed how the shift in gender roles has stirred up angry conservatism. I guess it is obvious, or at least understandable, but do we "blame" feminism for the increasing fundamentalism in so many religions? I never did take feminism seriously enough! I think that maybe it is time that I did! :-) Thanks Brian!

Asylum seekers and A Just Australia

2009-10-23T05:17:00.001-07:00

A Just Australia's newsletter is on line at:

http://content.enewslettersonline.com/14352/29876.html

They talk about the "déjà vu" that many of us are having in these last few weeks as the nation agonises yet again about asylum seekers coming by boat.
There is much more in the newsletter but AJA comment:

"AJA and other refugee groups have been working hard to counter the myths that are currently rife in the public arena. See AJA’s updated Myths and Facts sheet for indisputable information, facts and evidence about asylum seekers and refugees in Australia. Or read AJA’s latest media article. Although we want you to read our Myths and Facts sheet for yourself, here’s a brief summary of major points in the asylum seeker debate:

Australia’s increase in asylum seekers is a close reflection of the global increase in asylum seekers which has resulted from ongoing/increased violence and conflict in countries such as Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.

Australia’s recent reforms to asylum policy were desperately needed in order to respect our international human rights obligations and to return us to a situation where our values of decency and integrity were evident in our policies. A return to policies like Temporary Protection Visas and detention debts could be disastrous for the Australian psyche, let alone the wellbeing of vulnerable refugees.

The lack of protection for refugees available in most other countries in our region means that refugees from Afghanistan and Sri Lanka must travel long distances – all the way to Australia, in fact - before they have reached a country that can offer real and effective protection. In contrast, even UNHCR-registered refugees can be jailed for years in countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia.

Australia takes a very small number of asylum seekers, on a per-capita basis, on a GDP-average basis, or in absolute numbers, compared to most other countries.

The myth of ‘worthy’ and ‘unworthy’ refugees is just that – a myth. By definition, a refugee is escaping a situation of real danger, even death. In such a situation, any one of us would take whatever action necessary to seek safety and to protect the lives of loved ones.

Every human has the right to seek asylum in another country. An asylum seeker has legal status under Australian and international law."

Shministim

2009-10-22T17:38:00.001-07:00

http://www.shministim.com/ This year's graduating class in Israeli schools are now Shministim. They know what the occupation of Palestine is doing to their own country. They face ostracism and prison.

They write:

Out of sense of responsibility and concern for the two nations that live in this country, we cannot stand idle. We were born into a reality of occupation, and many of our generation see this as a “natural” state. In Israeli society it is a matter of fact that at 18, every young man and woman partakes in military service. However, we cannot ignore the truth – the occupation is an extreme situation, violent, racist, inhuman, illegal, non democratic, and immoral, that is life threatening for both nations. We that have been brought up on values of liberty, justice, righteousness and peace cannot accept it.

The Shministim Letter 2009-2010
Is inspired by generations of conscientious objectors in Israel and around the world,
who opposed their governments by saying: "We will not fight your wars! We object to being enemies!"

Just how big is Australia???

2009-10-21T18:19:00.001-07:00

A bit scary. Check out the map at http://www.rsf.org/en-ennemi33177-Australia.html When the whole continent is greyed out, Australia really does make its mark on the world map. This is not a map of which we want to be a part though!

It comes from Reporters without borders. I was interested to check our rating. It is good and has improved a lot over the last five years. But we are being watched along with Malaysia, Belarus... as potential "enemies of the internet". Those ranks already include Iran and China. I haven't participated in any of the internet actions against the "net nanny" push. But seeing that big grey spot on the globe makes me gulp!

For action about this use GetUp!

Issues

2009-10-16T05:40:00.000-07:00

And now for something entirely different. (although sorting of photos is continuing here.)

Issues are crowding in upon me.

Palestine and reflecting on the journey... Women in Black are having trouble getting vigils on Friday and I have not gone in since returning. I think that the Jerusalem women need to be supported with our vigils and the solidarity that offers.
I did not write a letter to the editor responding to people who were responding to Avigail. I did not want to be drawn into their agendas, or answer the questions that their attitudes raise. I need to write my own story; tell the stories that I saw and heard in Palestine (West Bank and East Jerusalem).

Issues about environment and global warming loom large and Fred went to a session on bulk buying of solar panels with local faith communities this week. I need to let Solartec know that we are home so that our ordered extra panels can be installed! :) The welcome rain that is still falling means that more fuel will grow before a potentially disasterous fire season starts.

My church is an inclusive, accepting church; my god especially so. A god who "consorts with sinners and taxpayers." John Bell has a lovely story about the prostitutes and tarts in Matthew's genealogy of Jesus. Much of the October Changing Attitude blog has comment about two important statements this week from bishops. Peter Selby and Jack Spong both speak.write about the process of the debate. It is time to say that it is over. (For Bp Spong at least!) There is a lot in those October comments by Colin. Anglicans need to read especially about the covenant and perhaps also comments about the Archbishop of Canterbury. It's not easy, but some things need to be said.

Australian politics has been enlivened this week by the sad story of Sri Lankan asylum seekers caught now in Indonesia. Malcolm Fraser has chided the coalition for "scratching the redneck nerve". It has certainly been scratched. Senator Hanson Young has visited Christmas Island detention centre and returned with scathing criticism. I have work to do here too.

But today was a joy and a wonder. I spent the day at the Wesley Centre's Third National Seminar on Word and Music in Worship. A breath of fresh air for me (and my lungs) but still echoes of the "bawling" that came when I was listening to the South African anthemn in the aeroplane a little over a week ago. "I will sing the Lord's song until justice comes into this land" was the motto of the Imologue Kantu choir of South Africa. I daresay they still need to be singing that song. Today we heard of the importance of singing justice; saying justice. It then becomes possible; imperative; to think and do justice. Amen.

Home

2009-10-13T05:46:00.000-07:00

Home, and, it would seem, to work! I am intending to have a period to reflect, but then diaconal work impinges. Avigail wrote a letter to the editor about Israel which was responded to yesterday (11th October). People seem to think that everything is fine and dandy in Palestine. I don't think that 12 days in occupied territory (and Nazareth, an Arab Israeli city) gives me much knowledge, but we were privileged in the people whom we met as a group, as well as the contacts made individually. It was a huge experience. (and I have looked up "kabod"; often translated as "glorious" when applied to god. Sometimes just heavy or strong, but, as I said, often with the weightiness of authority and position.)

But there is other work too. The RAC web site needed to have a response to tonight's news bulletin and the Prime Minister sounding harsh. http://www.refugeeaction.org/index.html At least looking for Avigail's letter (not found) a letter from Pamela Curr came up about the Siev 36; the boat that exploded on Ashmore Reef. That is worth reading. http://tinyurl.com/ylp4vac

And the photos. Always the photos. They are gradually being sorted. Some might soon come here as soon as I can get them onto the web somewhere.

In the meantime pilgrimages change you; I don't want to return to life as it was. There are other tasks beckoning. But the experience of an Old City being squashed by a burgeoning modern one, which includes squashing the people who live and work there, is hard to ignore. That most Palestinians do not have problems with check points is only because most of them (95%) cannot use them. What would life be like for me if I couldn't just pop over the boundary into the ACT? No coffee at Tilley's, no contact with friends... life would be so strange and different.

We heard stories of the intimidation and humiliation of going through Israeli border controls. I kept too quiet and compliant when challenged myself. But I wanted, needed to hang on to my camera (literally); and the paranoid soldier who thought I was taking photos of her couldn't, wouldn't understand that the images I saw as we went through the previous check point really were strange. There is no other reality for so many young Israelis. But the UK in the seventies was not this paranoid. IRA bombs were going off in London, street corners were barricaded off, I waited a few hours before the train could get into Inverness because of a bomb threat; I travelled through Afghanistan, then Pakistan and India just after their war; and on the 29th September 2009 I saw a check point where vehicles were stopped in long queues, rudely told when and where to go, and checked for bombs; soldiers walking around with guns (not so unusual in Israel); somehow it seemed surreal and strange. And cried out to be photographed.

Sorry, but in Pakistan in 1971 when I saw a Post Office with sand bags around it I wondered when the floods had been through. I was young and innocent. I am now 60 years old, still a stupid Australian; but not without a knowledge of the world.
Israel is paranoid. I agree with my friend Avigail.

If you want to live near Shechem, go and get Palestinian citizenship! Daniel Barenboim has it!

There, I have sort of told that story. I wasn't arrested; the rest of the group weren't questioned; being taken outside and questioned while I was busy deleting offending photos didn't hold up the group; (immigration still takes time!) Fortunately there was an older man who had a clearer head. And I still have the camera, just minus some good photos and a record of a boring border crossing. (unlike the one coming into Israel which was so chaotic that taking photos was the last thing on my mind!)

Homeward Bound

2009-10-06T12:30:00.001-07:00

Now at Heathrow and heading home. Strange tonight getting a wheelchair to this lounge I am in at the moment. Yes I can walk, yes, I can use the stairs, but yes, I need a wheel chair... in which case, I can't travel in the bubble upstairs in the plane, because I need a wheel chair! <sigh>

If you are disabled, then you are disabled... totally. There isn't room for thin myelin sheaths that stop axons working once they get hot!

But it has been a good trip.

Canterbury today was the last pilgrimage. But it is a place of tourists. Difficult to find a chapel for quiet prayer. Loudly interrupted at 1pm to be reminded to pray! Most people did stop and they were quiet. Many altars without crosses. And the windows are not Chartres. (But the new windows were better than the new twentieth century ones in Chartres.)

Time to be at home and tie up the ragged edges that have been exposed by this travel.

England!

2009-10-01T11:40:00.001-07:00

made it (just) to the UK! very hairy scary crossing of the Allenby (King Hussein) Bridge.

Fascinating plane trip from Amman. will tell all later

Pilgrimages change you. tis true. I felt the weight of all the pilgrims before me. It is heavy, but also like "kabod". weighty, with gravitas; it is an attribute of god.

more later

in Palestine (2nd try)

2009-09-26T10:47:00.001-07:00

What do I say? Where do I start?
This really is a trip into Palestine. Jericho and the Mountain of Temptation on Tuesday; I was sensible and stayed in the car park drinking ornge juice freshly squeezed and eating ice cream. The view of the monastery was good from there anyway! It was just like Rocamadour; a monastery just perched on a cliff... but no touristy pilgrim things to play with. The climb up for the others was not rewarded either. The gates were locked.

So I guess I felt a little smug even if I was feeling a bit hot.

I later learned the temperature was forty two! As bad as it had been in the Kimberley four years ago.

We returned to Jericho and there it was: The tell, the walls, the trenches. I had to see this archaeology! I went up onto Kathleen Kenyon's trench. but it was getting hot; legs were starting to go. I moved over to an explanatory board; the others were leaning over, looking at Kathleen's excavation. I could not go over... I started the return journey. The group overtook me. Doug's shoulder came to my aid; then Chris'; John took the double walking stick; Erica already had my bag. I was fortunate, my friends somehow got me down. At the end I bumped down the steps on my bum and was wheeled across the car park on an office chair!

so I stayed in the airconditioned mini bus at the Dead Sea resort and also at Qumran...
I should have written about brokenness in a retreat; about The Wall and Bethlehem; about Ramallah, today; and Sabeel... but my mind is confused, exhilarated and in turmoil. The best blog will probably be written at home.

later: Saturday night... it really was the heat; things are going a lot smoother now. it is getting close to the end and we are all tired. We were in Galilee today and returning to Jerusalem for Yom Kippur.

Jerusalem

2009-09-19T08:12:00.001-07:00

well, let's just try before, before we go to Jerusalem!

Petra was quite an experience.

Realising that going down the Siq was impossible I took the horse drawn cart option. Chris Ledger and I bumped our way down and the poor horse did an amazing job! so then we gazed upon the Treasury building and I took a camel to see a little bit further! yes, there is an animal welfare organisation ensuring the animals welfare. Reading the paper though, no one ensures that the boys who have to work with the animals can get to school and learn to read.

then on Friday 18th September. taxis to the Allenby Bridge. It is a very steep drop down into the Jordan Valley. eventually we got through to sitting on the bus to go over the bridge. The man who had difficulty walking turned out to have MS. The Indonesian family might have been coming back from Mecca; my tiny bit of Indonesian was useful. The woman beside me was returning to Nablus for the first time in 15 years. She can do that now because she now has a USA passport....

and there we all were crammed into a totally disorganised and chaotic situation on the Israeli side... suitcases over here; with assports on top! Passports disappear; wait; will we ever see them again?

yes we did, to go to another area, another queue.... "fearless leader" was quizzed: are you going to the West Bank? ... yes, he says; Jerusalem! ummm, not quite the right answer; but eventually we are through and a mini bus taxi brings us here.

Our first experience of what it is like to get through check points...

Then we re in the old city, in Knights Palace Hotel and recovered enough to explore! the crowded alleys and amazing things... It takes the breath away. Unfortunately it also took my legs away, so Chris and I peeled off and returned up the Via Dolorosa. slowly. very slowly.

today was another MSsey day. I stayed behid and walked down the outside of the wall to the Damascus Gate. What an amazing crowd and celebration! fInal preparation for Eid... more later

Apostrophes and keyboards

2009-09-15T12:58:00.001-07:00

and let me comment too on the french keyboard I am using. M is in a different spot, so is A... I noticed one error there. As for apostrophes, I cant find one unless it is uner 4' yep.... under the 4. so now you can criticize my grammar. What will an Arabic keyboard have???? (Linda)

I woiuld send this to Brian if I could. I couldn't make a comment on his blog tonight about apostrophes!

The Cantal, a pilgrimage

2009-09-13T13:13:00.001-07:00

Today I said farewell to St Bonnet de Salers and went through much of the countryside on the train up to Cler,ont Ferrand and thence over much flat land to Paris. The flatter and drier the country becomes the more Australians crop up!

But this country around Salers and Mauriac have shown Fred and me much more than bricollage and Brico Marché shops. (do it yourself plumbing à là Fyshwick!)

It has been sad to farewell Anthony and Dany and all of Greg and Wendys friends. Here is a land and the people of the land... they are not all locals. Some come from the Dordogne; some greet with four, not three kisses; but it is a land and its people that we have been amongst for two weeks. Fred returns later in the week to do more work.

On Friday we joined with the tourists in the Dordogne; at the huge chasm of Grouffre Padiraic and in Rocamadour. Rocamadour was a pilgrimage centre and it is now continuing much of that tradition as a tourism centre; selling fine arts and crafts and hospitality. Its just the spiritual feeding which is perhaps missing! or something... perhaps the missing bit is why we all gather at these places; like flocks of hungry birds....

now I need to find out where Women in Black meet in Jerusalem! I did not write it down... (sigh)

quickly from the Auvergne

2009-09-09T08:34:00.000-07:00

Just checking that this still is working!

sorry not to have been in much contact but I think that all amail has now been checked out and perhaps replied to!

I am surrounded by green! still huge blue skies with wonderful sunsets! and ancient towns and modern people. Enjoying meeting many of G & Ws friends and listening in to French conversations (with a bit of franglais thrown in)

Fred is working hard on the barn. We have had our travellers illness, hope that is all there is!

Been out of contact with news for most of the time! a real change from a previous life!

au 'voir!

2009-08-25T08:53:00.000-07:00

Arrived in Stoke Newington in London! I am reading both Harry Potter and Terry Pratchett... it is an interesting mixture. ...we are with Melissa in London in a flat above the pub that feels like we are in a house boat! It is floating on the brew downstairs or the London mud, or is it just Pratchett imaginings going wild? Wizards toppling walls and floors... it is a lathe and plaster construction with wild, and awake, floorboards!

So tomorrow The Eurostar, and Paris awaits.

musings before we leave

2009-08-20T05:31:00.001-07:00

The excitement and the work are crowding in. No French done tonight. But Women in Black still, tomorrow. Last Sunday I had to get my pen out while Ray was preaching.

He was doing the last of three sermons on the liturgy, the communion service. They are available now from http://www.stphilipsoconnor.org.au/sermons_index.html (Download Word doc from that page.)

But communion; it makes us family; we eat together... now the "Anglican communion" needs a covenant to make us family. do we? Do we need anything else other than that statement that we will take communion together? What does it mean that we do not? Such is the scandal of the broken communion between various christian groups. Always there are those who will judge, there are those who are not welcome.

And this week too, looking at the various groups that are increasingly out of communion in the Anglican church I heard another familiar theme. "We are the victims"... to me it comes from people whom I perceive as having the power and using it unwisely. But perhaps there is something more here. Are we all victims in a war, in an argument? It is only after one side has won that they can say they were the victims and responding to aggressive action on the part of the other. There is probably a whole academic field on this. The science of mediation and conflict resolution.

But last week Australian ABC TV audiences saw news from Sderot; there are still rockets being fired from Gaza and we had a long essay in the effect that they have on the people of this area. Yes, victims, but...

ABC did not show Gaza. (a later story was about vacation summer schools teaching young boys to be terrorists though.)

We are all victims, but that means we do not, cannot act.

Anglicans need to talk to one another. Break bread with one another. Take communion together.

If there is an impassable gulf between people, then it needs to be bridged. not easy; not comfortable. (Taiwan's suffering in last week's cyclone shows us that.)

and to be a bridge means to be walked over and stretched. pulled every which way.

that is something to which we could all aspire perhaps.

may you be pulled and stretched and walked over!

Stuff ups

2009-08-14T08:59:00.001-07:00

A post on Michael's blog perhaps cuts through some of the issues that have been troubling me. One state or two state solution in Israel and Palestine; and the Anglican church division.
He has some thoughts on human brokenness at:
http://michaelcardensjottings.blogspot.com/2009/08/some-thoughts-on-human-brokenness.html
and concludes:

Perhaps then a key way of reading the biblical texts for the purposes of liberation is to explore the way they reveal us, reflect us in our frailties, our vulnerabilities, our brokenness. And not to condemn either but to understand, to empathise, yes, to love.

Mary told me of this interview on Palestine "one state solution" at http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5723 I can see problems and realities here.

And an address by Bishop Lawrence at http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/24779/ confused me. (I admit my brain and my body is (yes it is a singular) not working well at the moment.) I count myself as an angry anglican when the covenant is discussed but there is something missing in this defence of the anglican way that would still exclude me, my parish and my friends. Somehow Michael's post on brokenness says it. There is a human brokenness that needs to be acknowledged.

We have stuffed up, all of us, from Sharon to Arafat, from Akinola to Schori, we have a broken world to live in.

together.

thank god.

Angry Anglicans

2009-08-13T18:09:00.001-07:00

http://changingattitude-england.blogspot.com/2009/08/angry-anglicans.html

Anglicans and a covenant

2009-08-13T04:50:00.001-07:00

I don't take a lot of notice of how the church organises itself these days. I am not on Synod, or even Parish Council. It is like the freedom of being sixty. I don't need to know. It is a freedom I relish.
Except that other people make the decisions!

I remember fondly that Canon Laurie Murchison (may his name be forever remembered), told us at All Saint's and St Mark's that the fundamental unit of governing the church was the diocese. (governance was not a word in use then,) The diocese (and its Synod) was where the decisions were made. Later on in my life I discovered Provincial Synods and Primates.

But a covenant to keep "the communion" together; this comment worth reading is from Pluralist:
http://pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/2009/08/thirteen-unsure.html He stirs my unease. We are in communion, because we take communion at each other's tables. We break bread together.

As Pluralist says:

Here is my 'but', and it is as if these organisations do not yet get it. It is this:

We will work to ensure that if the Church of England is to sign up to the Covenant, it has potential for rapid progress on this and other issues.

No! Work to ensure the Church of England does not sign up to the Covenant. The Covenant is no good for anyone interested in Anglican flexibility and the inclusion of all its people liturgically and in ministry. If you sign the Covenant, you get the two track approach at the very least, which this joint statement rightly rejects. It would mean having to defy the Covenant and linking up with those Churches that are more flexible, which would not be possible structurally in the Church of England. Also if the Covenant fails in the Church of England, it means it won't constrain other parts of Anglicanism either, except those Churches that want to draw up agreements with others (and nothing surely wrong with that - part of the decentralised or confederal way of doing things).

as I say, he is worth reading.