I'm at Commy Dinner now. I have to get my blogging fix in anywhere I can.

But as I'm feeling rather pressured sitting here to have something good to write, I don't have much to say.

I was thinking that maybe one day I should do that (x) game that everyone is doing on their blogs but I would want to tell a story for most of them so it would take a mighty long time. Plus I'd be using up precious sermon illustrations.

I've been really enjoying Futurama lately. Funnies. Heh heh.

So long and no blogging.

The internet is down at my house. And I've been away. Good combination.

But I haven't had any revelations recently. I keep thinking what would I write if I were going to blog and the only thing that goes through my brain is "I'm in love with me." But I've already posted that before and it wasn't true the first time. Tomorrow I may write that post I've been planning on writing for the past two weeks.

I'm meant to be house sitting Stephen's house at the moment but after two attempts with two separate sets of keys, it's not looking likely that I'm going to be able to get into his house. Oh well. It's cheaper to live at home.

I'm reading Nelson Mandela's autobiography at the moment. He's a good man.

Oi, What a Game!

I just watched the State of Origin (on delay because I was at Bible Study tonight). That was fantastic. Except perhaps for the Queensland win. But it was a cracker of a match.

Well done.

Go the Blues!

Take the Money, Kid

"I remember one day after school one year ago, my parents asked me if I'd rather meet the Queen or earn a million dollars. I said I'd rather meet the Queen." - 9-year-old Harris Wang

From here.

Question

"How is it that there can be so much disagreement about the Bible but it can still be the Word of God? Wouldn't he do a better job of being clear?"

I found that written at the top of one of the pages in my pad yesterday. I don't remember writing it. I wonder if I was having a crisis of faith that day or just imagining one?

Yesterday I forgot to take my Bible to College and I discovered how hard it is to borrow a Bible from a Bible College Library. Perhaps because if all the Bibles get stolen from the College it'll no longer be a Bible College. It will have lost its uniqueness. In the end the Librarian let me steal a Bible for 2 hours.

Emancipation

Today I handed in a form to withdraw from learning Greek. Oi! It's great to be free.

At least, for a while...

Books

Inspired by Lesley's Post:

Books I have read this year:
(Although I'm not sure I remember them all)

There and Back again: A Hobbit's Tale - Sean Astin
Seven Types of Ambiguity - Elliot Perlman
Tell Me No Lies - John Pilger (Unfinished)
Life Together - Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Unfinished)
Film - Sean Condon
New Issues Facing the Christian Today - John Stott (Unfinished - But I'll be reading that for years)
I Believe in Preaching - John Stott
Bono on Bono - Michka Assayas (23 pages to go)

I don't seem to be very good at finishing books. But I do have plans to finish them all.

Books that are in my Pile
(In the vague order that I plan to read them)

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon
Long Walk to Freedom - Nelson Mandela
Dirt Music - Tim Winton
The Cost of Discipleship - Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Maybe I should finish the other "Boffa" first, it's only 90 pages long)
The Satanic Verses - Salman Rushdie
Long Drive Through a Short War - Peter Wilson

And interspersed along the way:
Tell Me No Lies - John Pilger
New Issues Facing the Christian Today - John Stott

Continuing the Series on My Good Looks...

This is me in Kemp's glasses at Church last Sunday. I think I might become a student film maker with glasses like that...

Don't tell Helen but I can't find the DVD of "Aimee". They're performing it tomorrow. I'm sure it'll turn up.

That's not a very good title. But what can you do these days?

Last night was a very exciting night. Star Wars was getting wrapped up. It was going to be there for the finale of the biggest film series in cinema history. I love being a part of cinema history.

I went and saw Titanic before it was the biggest grossing film of all time, when it was just an expensive film about a boat. It wasn't anything all that special.

Anyway, I arrived at Town Hall station at 9:04pm. Walking out of the ticket gates I saw Chris and we walked to the cinema together. As we walked we discussed the fact the neither of us were anticipating watching a particularly good film. We were just there for the experience and because it was Star Wars.

When we arrived we found David and Ryan sitting in the line already. In my usual passively dictatorial style I got them to move to the back of the line so that we'd have more room for the rest of the 16 people joining us. It was a pointless exercise in the end and we should have joined them in their part of the line but I didn't know that at the time.


Ryan and Chris in the Line

For the next few hours we waited and many people from our group joined us. We moved up steadily in the line. Not because they were letting people into the cinema but because we were just getting more and more compacted. I would have liked to be surrounded by Jedi Knights and Sith Lords but there were very few dressed up people in my part of the line. I did manage to spend a lot of the night rubbing backs and bums with a fat, hairy man who's friends called him "Chewbacca", but that wasn't all that exciting.


The Line

At around 11:30pm someone started shouting at us to get our tickets ready. By this stage the whole of our crew was together. I'd given out all the tickets. Ryan asked me if I had given him his. I told him that I had. He looked through all his pockets and through his wallet. I looked threw all mine too. Neither of us could find a ticket. I was sure I'd given him his ticket.


More Line

In the end Ryan decided that he'd lost his ticked and he would have to see if anyone else could give him a ticket or he'd just go home. When he left I started counting and re-counting everyone to make sure I really had brought enough tickets. I couldn't specifically remember handing Ryan a ticket.

When we got let into the cinema we headed for our traditional front row. Once everyone was settled I kept counting our group. There were 16 people in our group in the cinema and Ryan outside. I had only bought 16 tickets. I had counted wrong. There was one ticket less than there should have been. I jipped Ryan of a ticket.

I felt so bad. As soon as I relised I went out of the cinema and rang Ryan to confess what a terrible person I was. I thought about offering him my ticket but I was sure he wouldn't have taken it. I wasn't sure how to fix it.

I went back into the cinema and couldn't join in the frivolities because I was feeling so guilty. I told Gemma what had happened. Seeing as she is a nicer person than I am she rang Ryan and offered him her ticket. He accepted, but before she could give it to him he rang me up to say a guy out the front had sold him one of his spare tickets for our cinema. How exciting! I still felt bad, but I was happy that Ryan was able to join us.

While we waited for Ryan I kept running over in my head if I had done the right thing and if I should have offered Ryan my ticket, or even forced him to take it. But I didn't. I had forgotten to buy enough tickets to a film before and my sister had given up her ticket so I could go. Why am I so bad at buying cinema tickets? And why is everyone else better at giving up their tickets than I am? I didn't really feel like I was a very good person at that stage of the night.

When Ryan arrived back in the cinema I gave him a hug. It was good to have him back. It's nice how mistakes can be fixed. There is grace in this world for people like me.

Before the film started there was a competition for the best dressed cinema patron, but I've already written about that.

The film started. As soon as the Star Wars logo came up on the screen there was a big cheer. It's a wonderful atmosphere. A cinema full of excited geeks. What better crowd could you ask to watch a film with?

Revenge of the Sith was good. It was dark and violent. I was hoping for decapitations before I went in and there were plenty of them. Not that that's what makes a good film, but it means the violence isn't childish.

Anakin and Padmé's dialog was the worst thing about the film. They sound like a cheap daytime soap. I still don't know what she ever saw in him. He was always such a whiny self-centred boy and then he grew up to be a moody self-centred man. Lines like "Anakin, you're breaking my heart!" and "Where you're going I can't follow" are pretty horrid. George should have given their scenes to other people.

But the action was cool. Obi-Wan and Anakin were tops light saber men. They kicked butt!

The whole film was rather tragic. Knowing what happened at the end was horrible waiting for it to happen. Any hopes you had for Anakin were vain. It gave a lot more emotional weight to A New Hope.

Poor Obi-Wan would have felt terrible. When we meet him in A New Hope he would have been living with the guilt of discovering the boy and pushing for him to be trained as a Jedi, who became the most evil Sith Lord in the Universe. He would have felt responsible for the rise of the Republic and the slaughter of the Jedis. The poor guy.

I really liked the film. Well done George.

The night was good too. Next time I'm going to count everybody who wants a ticket 3 times and buy too many tickets anyway.


The Star Wars Group (at least the people who wanted to sit down the front)

Episode III was cool. The film was good fun. I'll say more later I think.

Before the film started they had a competition to see who was best dressed. There were lots of top quality costumes. They were all guys. Then, for the contestants they had a trivia quiz. One of the people who was dressed up asked the MC if he could ask a question. The MC allowed him, so he asked "How many of the man here have ever had sex?"

Only two guys put their hand up. That made my night.

Actually many things made my night but that was one of them.

Now I must sleep.

Star Wars here I come!

I just annouced to my Mum "I have some bad news." Then told my Mum that if they pass the new Anglican laws, and I become a Deacon (which I'm thinking about so I can do Chaplancy work) I'd get the title "Rev", I could wear robes and clerical collar (which I think is all rather funny). My mother looked horrified and then said "Are you sure you didn't want to tell my you're gay?"

Phew

Rob Thomas "wants Matchbox Twenty fans to know that the group is not breaking up, and to expect future albums and tours from the band. Rob also plans to continue collaborating with other artists."

From here.

Today it is exacly a year since I last ate McDonald's.

Oh actually, I think that might be a lie.

Scrap that.

Today is exactly 11 months since I last ate McDonald's, maybe.

Paris Hilton makes a worthwhile movie!*

"This is a very sexy movie. It's all about hot sorority girls in college, and everybody's beautiful. It's hot, and there are some sexy scenes with me." - Paris talking about her new movie National Lampoon's Pledge This!

I got it from here

*I was being sarcastic by the way

Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.

Psalm 73:25

It's worth saying again.

I went to Warringah Mall today and disliked the experience terribly. The carpark is horrible. I drove across kilometers of roof-top parking finding no spaces and wondering if I had changed postcodes yet. It's not really easy to drive around looking for a park. It is easy to just drive forever across endless, rooftops of concrete and cars. I have been there before and every time I get lost in the car park. You want to park near Hoyts and you end up over the other side near David Jones.

Once inside the mall I didn't like it either. But I think I was just punishing the mall for the carpark.

Let me say though, that Hornsby Westfield is a completely different story. I know Hornsby Westfield like the back of my hand. Every nook and cranny, almost.

On Thursday I bought a new sound system for my family. I had to pick it up from Bing Lee and they told be to drive down to the loading dock. So I got to drive down deep into the dark, depths of Westfield. It was lots of fun.

Bono Joke

Bono dies and goes to heaven. He meets God and God asks him what he believes. Bono says "I believe you're sitting in my seat."

I thought it was funny.

I got that from here.

Yesterday in Bible Study we talked about the Terri Schiavo case. It was probably one of the most interesting and intense Bible studies that I've been to. We divided the group into those people who would be prepared to take the feeding tube out, and those who wouldn't. Then we discussed it.

It was interesting because it all got quite personal. People talked about the times in their lives where they have had to confront death, life support and the value of those people who are less able than us. We talked about the point of human life and where it derives its value from.

We didn't come to any conclusions (as we rarely do in my Bible study group) but we came out with a greater appreciation of the complexities of the situation (or at least I did). Ethics are both wonderfully interesting and potentially extremely painful. Last night was a good reminder of that.

Today I did Greek work on the computer. It was more fun than I've ever had doing Greek before, but that's not saying much.

I also bought us a new sound system and DVD player for our house. It's very exciting, and works nice. Yay!

I was meant to be going to the boxing tonight to see Mundine fight Kessler but it's been postponed to June 8th. This is good because it means I can go to Bible Study and I like Bible Study. Especially exciting is the dinner at Bible Study. Alison makes wonderful food.

I'm feeling rather hungry. I haven't had breakfast yet. These Webpoint public internet access things are crap.

It is way too early to be awake on a day off.

I wagged Greek tonight. It was great.

I'm sure my lecturer will think I'm not in his class anymore. Last time I wagged a class he thought I'd quit the course. But I'm happy not doing Greek tonight. I looked at my book this afternoon and tried to do my homework and I realised I couldn't understand a word of it. I knew I'd go to class and not understand a word the lecturer said either and all I would do is doodle on my pad for 3 hours. So I thought I could better spend my time elsewhere. So I spent my time elsewhere.

I went over to Jo and Jem's house and played Social Worker games with Fi, Tracy, Jo and Jem. Things called "Strength Cards" which affirm your good points and build your self-esteem. There was laughs.

Then I caught the train home.

Going back in time...

I had lunch at Subway in Croydon Park today. Lunch at College was booked out, so I had to go elsewhere. I went to Subway. I'd never been there before, all I had were instructions for finding it from the lady in the office. When I tried to follow her instructions I found myself walking down a quiet little street going deeper and deeper into suburbia. But just when I was about to turn back, I found, like a oasis in a barren middle-class land, some multi-cultural shops. Hooray! There was even an "International Hairdresser" which I thought was rather odd, I have no idea how cutting the hair of someone who speaks Arabic is any different from cutting the hair of someone who speaks English, but I'll leave that to the specialists.

I ate my lunch at Subway and read my book in the sun. It was very pleasant. A nice intermission between Deuteronomy and Leviticus.

Happy Mother's Day Mother

I love my Mum. She's fantastic. I hope yours is too.

Yesterday my Mum had all the volunteers from the drop in where she works over to our house for a barbeque. I did quite well. I don't cope to well when my house fills up with people I don't know, but I didn't hide too much. I only really retreated to my room when I ran out of food to eat and the speeches started.

Being that the drop in centre is for people off the street and a lot of the volunteers are people who have joined the team after spending time there, my house was quite an interesting place. I do enjoy the change of meeting people who aren't middle-class, well adjusted, North Shore people. Not that I have anything against rich, "happy" people, but every now and again it's good to have a conversation with a drunk man in your kitchen who writes poetry to stop himself from getting into fights.

It was an interesting contrast to go from my house to church to run our youth night. The youth night was great. I love seeing young people who love Jesus. And I love it when people become Christians.

The theme of the night was "Bling Bling" (very biblical) and it made me very aware of how white, Australian and rock loving we all are. It wasn't a problem but most of us seemed rather lost with the whole Hip/Hop Gangsta thing when we tried to put it on. I think if I was Tupac or 50 ent I would have found the whole thing rather quaint: "Oh look it's the white Christians trying to be black rappers." Not that they'd say that, and I doubt they would describe anything as "quaint"

But I had fun and everyone was a little silly and in the end the night wasn't really about being a successful rip-off or send-up of another sub-culture, so I think we did fine. People became Christian and that was tops.

3 CDs and the Christian Bubble

On Tuesday I bought 3 cds:

Rob Thomas - Something to Be

Soul Survivor Live - Living Loud

Paul Colman - Let it Go

Paul Colman's cd isn't very good. Paul Colman Trio were a good band. They were fun, they had catchy melodies, they told stories in their songs. In Paul Colman's new album he seems to have sold out to the American Christian music scene. The cd is just full of bland, un-original worship. It's like the Newsboys, only boring. One or two tracks work well. "Last Night in America" seems to be on the verge of making a good statement but he seems to hold off a bit just in case the moral majority hears him right. If he did what he does well and wasn't trying to please the market he could do really good. But we get stuck with imitations of the popular.

Living Loud is good. As far as worship goes, it's enjoyable. There's a funky new version of "Lord I Lift Your Name on High" and everything fits together well. I don't find worship music cds overly exciting, but they are good sometimes. Good when you're in the mood to sing, be encouraged and praise Jesus. I think I'd rate this as their best live cd yet.

Rob Thomas, well, he's done great. After my lambasting him earlier this year for becoming an Enrique pretty boy, I take it back. His album is solid. It's not Matchbox 20, but it's definatly Rob Thomas. He has all the usual marks of heart broken angst and the music is driving. But he's also explored new stuff and most of it suceeds. It's not dull this album. I'm very impressed. He even sings about being Rob Thomas, where every song seems to be about breaking up, I appreciated that:

Hey man
Play another one of those heartbreak songs
Tell another story how things go wrong
And they never get back
My pain is a platinum stack
Take that s*** back
You don't wanna be me when it all goes wrong
You don't wanna see me with the houselights on
I'm a little too headstrong
Stand tall
I don't wanna get walked on

I still don't really like "Lonely No More"

I've been thinking about why I like secular music more than Christian music. I think the problem with Christian music (which isn't worship music) is that while it wants to compete with secular stuff, it can't. It can't explore the places that secular music can. Rob Thomas can sing about how much life sucks, Paul Colman can't. Christians have to sing "Life's hard but I've got Jesus" and "Today is hard but I'm happy because God will make everything better tomorrow." I'm waiting for more Christians to start singing "Life sucks, what the hell are you doing God?"

Perhaps that's why I appreciate U2. They aren't afraid to sing as Christains but they aren't worried about saying all the right things either. There is honesty which comes before a "good" portrayal of the Christian life and theological truth. Albums like Pop would be unacceptable in Koorong, but are probably more honest about seeking Christ in this world than much of the music is Koorong is. U2 are "lookin' for baby Jesus under the trash."

But I talk too much about U2.

I like non-Christian music because it lets you explore stuff that you can't explore when you're a Christian. I can't be self-centred, scream at the world and say it's justified like Linkin Park can. I can't constantly talk about having my heart broken like Rob Thomas can. I can't say "I may not go to heaven, but I hope that you go to hell" (Counting Crows) but it sure feels good to sing it. It's vicarously living a life without the moral confines of Christainity and with all the moral justification of a good melody. It let's you explore the truth of not having to always be making sure you're not denying "the Truth". And I think that that exploration gives Christains a better understanding of what life really is like, for people who believe and for those who don't. It doesn't mean that Jesus doesn't save the day, it just reminds us how much the day needs to be saved. It's the beauty of living outside a Christian bubble. Kill it! Kill the bubble, I say.

The day has ended. It was rather long.

I took Hannah to school this morning, which is always a joy. She's a good kid.

I went shopping for a new pair of jeans. I have been running low on pants. (English people call their underwear pants, crazy.) I was worried about going back to shop for long pants as I had an accident last time. I was in a rush and didn't have the strength of will to fight with the shop assistant so I accidentally spent $100 on jeans that are rubbed, dirty, have those pretentious, little sown up rips in them and are way too trendy for me.

So today I went shopping with trepidation. But I think it turned out alright. I bought jeans that I can live with and certainly aren't too cool. But I think they're cool enough that I won't get beat up by 15-year-olds on the station.

I came home and had a shower. The cleaners arrived while I was in the shower and I think they probably heard me singing.

Work was good. We set up for our big event tomorrow night. I enjoyed hanging around. When most people had left a few of us hung about for a silly sing along. Sam and Helen ate Indian with me.

Later tonight David and I watched In Good Company. It was a fun film. It made me laugh, it had a good ending but it wasn't perfect. It had a good little giggle at the corporate world. It inspired me to want to be a good husband and father when I get around to that part of my life. If "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" I could start a paving business.

Oh, I know a little more now. I'm going for the Liberal Democrats but I doubt they're going to win. The Conservatives seem like our Liberals and the other is Blair's party. Humpf. One day there'll be good politicians with a chance of getting power.

I can dream can't I?

Perhaps in the morning I will hear if there is a new British PM. I'm hoping it's not Mr Blair again, although I don't know much about the other guy except that he looks like John Howard's brother.

As Liz pointed out, today's date is 05/05/05. That's rather exciting. When I went to bed last night I set my alarm for 4:55am so that I could get up and blog. I wanted to blog at 05:05am on 05/05/05. But when my alarm went off the urge to celebrate the numerical patterns of the space time continuum were overwhelmed by the desire to go back to sleep. So I did.

Daze

I don't write much about my days these days. Probably because they aren't fantastically interesting at the moment. I'm pretty happy, but not much out of the ordinary is happening. I don't have interesting stories to tell.

Take today for instance:
7:00am - Alarm goes off
7:33am - Get up and shower
8:06am - Have quiet time
8:54am - Make breakfast and watch Spanish News on TV (Martin was watching it, I didn't understand a word but it all seemed to be about traffic)
9:15am - Leave house, drive to work
9:42am - Arrive at work
9:45am - Check my emails and blogs
9:55am - Prepare Scripture
10:14am - Go to Scripture
10:20am - Teach Scripture (They laughed at my jokes. I had to censor the Bible today. Instead of saying "Come and sleep with me" I changed it to "Hey there tiger!"
10:50am - The bell went, back to church
11:00am - Start reading "Time Management" article before staff meeting
11:37am - Staff Meeting
1:15pm - Lunch with Helen and Stephen
1:47pm - Do some work (I can't remember what)
2:25pm - Burn the sermons from last week onto cd, and blog from the church computer
2:55pm - Send many emails (I sent 17 or 18 today)
3:15pm - Call my small group
3:45pm - Send more email, plan teaching for youth group
4:45pm - Find Lauren and go shopping for dinner
5:20pm - Put Dinner on
5:25pm - Write scene matrix for Larry
5:45pm - Have a Prayer Meeting
6:15pm - Have a Leader's Meeting
7:55pm - Go to Bible Study
9:48pm - Rach drops Liz and herself home
9:55pm - Drive home
10:25pm - Arrive home and went to the toilet and read about Christian sports people
10:35pm - Go on the computer
10:47pm - Start blogging.

There's my day. Facinating no doubt. As you can see there is good reason why I haven't blogged much about my days recently. But I am pretty content.

I remember on September 11, 2001 when I read the paper the first thing I said was "Oh God." Then I remember thinking that the world was going to change. Within a few days I had written an email telling George W Bush that he shouldn't bomb Afghanistan and that if my country called me up to fight in the Army, I wasn't going to go.

For a little while the world seemed uncertain, we had no idea what would happen next. These days, the world has changed, but we know what's going on. There'll be some wars, terrorists will blow things up, the West will continue ignoring the disparity between the way it lives and the rest of the world. Things will change. But slowly.

If things go well, the UN Millennium Development goals will be reached, world poverty will be halved, this won't be such an unequal world. If things go badly, the "democratic" conquest of the world will continue. The little guy will loose out. The extremists (from all sides of the conflicts) will keep pushing their agenda through violence.

Probably there'll be a mix of both. Neither of them are mutually exclusive. There are people working on achieving both at the moment. But I think I'm more of a pessimist than optimist. I'm expecting the "wars and rumors of wars."

I'm thinking about this because last night Ryan and I watched a French documentary called The World According to Bush. It wasn't very interesting. It didn't tell me anything I didn't already know. It was like a more serious, less over-hyped and sensational, version of Fahrenheit 9/11. But I'm interested in this world. I'm just wondering how to best participate in it.

Today I had breakfast with Liam in St Ives, Lunch with Matt in Pymble, Coffee with Courtney in Frenchs Forest and Dinner with Sally in Terrey Hills. I'd call myself the social king but they were all meetings. They were fun though. The more I don't talk about what I'm meant to be talking about the more I enjoy meetings.

I also watched Napoleon Dynamite. It was freakin' awesome.

Now I'm going to bed. It'll be the first time I've been to bed during the night (as opposed to the morning) all week. Gosh.

I have been rather tired today. I fell asleep a few times in church tonight. I wanted to tell the preacher that I fell asleep because I got 3 hours sleep last night, not because I didn't like what they were saying. But I don't know if they caught me napping, so I didn't say anything. It's silly to say sorry for something that nobody knows you did.

My sermon today went well. The 8am congregation was good. As Stephen says, I could say anything and they'd think I was lovely. It's the charm of being a young person. But I was getting a little worried about the 10am. But people were nice to me. Just before the sermon Steve came up to me and asked me to preach the shorter 8am version of my sermon because time was running out and there wasn't space for the extended edition 10am version. It was probably a good call. The only disappointing thing was that I had to cut out a paragraph that involved a joke about throwing Jesus off a boat. What a funny thought. "Lord overboard!"

I was in the shower this morning worrying that no one would like what I was going to say. I had to walk myself through my sermon assuring myself that everything I had written I had gotten out of the text, and so even if people didn't like it, it's still Biblical. I'm there to preach the word, not entertain people.

I preached on the whole book of Jonah and that was good fun. Jonah is a fun guy. Mainly because he's rather melodramatic and the most reluctant of prophets. But also one of the most powerful. Who converts 120,000 people with a one sentence sermon? Jonah does, that's who. What a freak!

Tomorrow I am going to two pubs, two coffees, and I reckon I might go see a movie too. And then I might watch Napoleon Dynamite when I have a break.

Its annoying when you finish writing your sermon at 2amish and you realise that you have to preach it in 6 hours.

I'm hoping the next four hours of sleep are good.