Reading

Today Jem and I went and saw Elizabethtown. That was a pretty fun film. Orlando if pretty good looking. I can see why girls find him hot. He was a bit of a pansy as Legolas though. Not that Orlando's looks were the highlight of the movie, I just noticed it. In a manly, hetro kinda way.

The memoral scene was pretty special. I was impressed.

Afterwards we went to the St Mary's Cathedral to see inside. It was very impressive. I reckon the nicest church in Sydney. Better then the Anglican Cathedral. I reckon we should see if we can swap for a bit. Run a Cathedral exchange program.

We folled this with a visit to the State Library. Wow, that was cool. Last time I went I was too scared to go into the big library. But since I had a friend I made it through. I looked though the catalogues and wondered about all the information that must be in the stack. So fun. Although I wasn't brave enough to figure it out. I'll have to take Lesley one day.

I read a book called Leviathan: The unauthorised biography of Sydney. I much enjoyed the first 13 pages. I want to go buy it. He's good that Birmo.

I had Chef's Lucky Noodles of dinner. No 31 with Thick Rice Noodles. Lovely!

Burn in Hell

Last night when I started my sermon I pretended to have a good rant about the prosperity doctrine. I got to say that anyone who preaches it is "spawn of Satan!" (which I don't believe.) It was way fun. And my favourite bit was saying "Come out! Come out and stand on the Truth that God wants you to be miserable and poor!" or something like that.

I hadn't really thought about whether or not it'd be fun before hand. I just decided it was the right thing for the job. But once I'd done it I wanted to do it again. I think I need to become an angrier preacher and call down more curses. That'd be heaps fun.

It's sad I don't think it's a very good idea.

From the Dust

"Music, as well as being the most dispensable of arts, is probably the hardest to throw off. It pursues...by strange means. Music lives beneath the soles of our feet. Given no encouragement music rises from the dust itself." - Tim Winton

Mr Miyagi has Died

Pat Morita, who played Mr Miyagi in The Karate Kid series, has died. He was 73.

That's sad.

From here.

Post-Podcast Comedown

The day after podcasting is always a hard one. I live in fear that this time I've oversteped the mark. I'm going to make someone, somewhere angry. That'll I'll get angry emails from parents of people in my youth group.

That hasn't happened yet, but it certainly is a fear. I guess I realise that most of the world doesn't find toilet humour as funny as I do. And that my humour, when it's at it's most offensive (eg characters making racist comments), is usually making the opposite point than is being espoused. It's scary because you're jumping between the extreamly childish and the social commentary (which is hopefully a little more grown up, although it's probably not much). I doubt anyone really comes away thinking "Yeah that really made me think." But I do at least hope that people don't come away saying "The world could do without that sort of thing."

Podcast 5: For Angus

Well here it is. The people I would like to appologise to this time are:
Indonesians and Michelle Leslie.

I'm sure one day I'll get in trouble for this.

Podcast 5

I love Chef's Lucky Noodle. I'm having it for the second Friday in a row. God is good!

I tried writing Sunday's sermon yesterday. It didn't work. It was like trying to give birth to a echidna, which I assume is rather difficult.

Ethical Conundrum



I was walking to Community Dinner on Tuesday and I saw some guys across the road at the bus interchange, about 25 metres away (I was outside Forty Winks, they were at the Toilets near Jack's) start arguing with each other. There were four of them. I was intrigued. I'd been watching them for a little while because they looked to be doing the usual business that goes on in those toilets.

Anyway they started arguing. And as I was standing at the lights about to cross William St, they started fighting. There seemed to be two-on-two with punching and kicking and all the rest. Also at the lights with me was an old woman and a young guy. The young guy was extremely interested. He started saying "Get 'im! Just F***ing get into 'im!"

When the lights beeped instead of crossing the road this man ran across the Highway to join in the fight. The Old Lady and I started crossing road. I don't think the Old Lady noticed the fight. I kept watching as I walked because it was rather interesting.

The last thing I saw of the fight was of the guy who'd been standing with me at the lights trying to break the top off a branch he'd found on the ground so he could use it in the fight.

I just kept walking.

I was wondering what I should have done. I didn't really like the idea of getting involved and trying to break it up, but I didn't feel particularly good walking away either. I felt like I should have done something. I decided I was allowed not to get involved because I remembered this verse:

Like one who seizes a dog by the ears
is a passer-by who meddles in a quarrel not his own. - Proverbs 26:17

But I can't say that verse convinced me not to get involved, it was more a justification of my desire not to do anything.

It makes me wonder what I would do in other situations.

The reasons I hope I would get involved:
My friends, family, people I knew, were involved
It was unprovoked/one party was not wanting to participate
They were in a weaker postion (Women, children, elderly, uneven)

The reasons I had for not getting involved on Tuesday:
I'd probably get hurt
No-one seemed to want to avoid the fight (I'd been watching for about 5 minutes before the fight broke out, both parties had plenty of time to walk away)
There was two-on-two (not three on one for instance)
The above verse

But still I felt more like a coward than someone who was morally right. I could have called the cops I guess. I'm not sure.

Jesus did say: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God." (Matt 5:9). While I do know that I've spent a lot of my life attempting to make peace, I can't help but feel in this situation I only succeeded in looking out for myself.

Views anyone?

I went to KFC today with some of the Staff. I ate it just because I forgot what it tasted like. Now I remember. It hasn't improved.

Or perhaps I'm just just a lowly pilgrim.

I'd rather not call myself a pilgrim, it sounds rather like I'm subtly extolling how humble I am.

I am feeling like a traveller though because I'm in a net cafe near Central Station. It's a backpackers one as opposed to a gaming one. This one is full of people talking in all sorts of foreign languages, where as gaming ones are full of people speaking Asian or bad language. To come to this one I had to join up with some thing called Global Gossip. They gave me a form to fill out where every field was mandatory, which I think is a little rude. When it got to Mobile Number I lied and clicked the box which said "I don't have one yet". I wouldn't have lied but they didn't have have a "I don't want to give you my number I just want to use the internet" box to tick.

Anyway net cafe forms are not all that interesting at the best of times, I can't see why you would want to read about them second removed on my blog.

I've spent the day (at least the meaningful half after 12pm) preparing for my sermon. I went to college and read and wrote in the Library. I didn't start falling asleep till about 3 hours in so I thought that was pretty good effort. Better than any of my study efforts.

This morning, after dropping Hannah at school, I bought myself the new U2 dvd. I'm all set to watch it tonight after Dosas. My life is quite full of U2 at the moment.

Now I'm just mooching around on the net continuing my sermon research while I wait for Dosas to start. Did you know that John Cadbury (who owned Cadburys in the 19th Century) created the Animals Friend Society a forunner to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals? He did. (Wiki told me)

That's all I have to say.

March 31st. U2. Oh yeah.

I've been a rather bad blogger these past few days. Wednesday and now it's Saturday. Hoi! That's disgraceful.

I'll try and write about all the things that I've missed. Here we go...

Well done Socceroos.

I have my exam tomorrow. I reckon I've done 2 hours study. That's a record for me in the past few years. I'll probably blitz it with that much work.

Hey Hey, Ho Ho, I went on a another protest march-o

I went on the IR Reform protests today. They were fun. Much like every other protest really. Lots of speechs and sore legs, a march and sore legs, then more speechs and sore legs. But still fun.

My favourite part is always the march. They're noisy, look good, there's lots of police and helicopters, you can walk in the middle of the road, you get to catch up with friends and you get to stand up for something you believe in, what more could you want?

The highest highlight of the day was being able to march along and shout "The workers, united, we'll* never be deafeated!" and shake my fist in the air. It was like a real protest.

People also shouted: "Whatdowewant?!"

"Workers rights!"

"When'owewann'em?"

"Now!"

Which I thought was silly seeing as we were protesting against our rights being taken away. So we have them now, when'owewan'em? Next year as well! Although that's not quite as catchy.

I hope the Government listens.

*or is it "will"?

U2 is coming to Australia!

From U2.com:

"Vertigo//2006 will commence in early February with stops planned in Mexico, South America, New Zealand, Australia and Japan."

Yeehaa!

I'm there, I'm there, I'm there!

Straight Talking

In John 11 Jesus proposes that he and his disciples go to Judea but they react saying "Rabbi, a short while ago the Jews tried to stone you, and yet you are going back there?"

Jesus replies "Are there not twelve hours of daylight? A man who walks by day will not stumble, for he sees by this world's light. It is when he walks by night that he stumbles, for he has no light."

Now if I was a disciple I would be rather frustrated by that response. I'm not particularly sure what that means and why Jesus said it there. I would have preferred Jesus just said "We cannot be deterred by fear" or "Stop being wusses we do what God wants" or "Sticks and stones may break your bones but I'm the Son of God!"

A bit further on Jesus is talking about Lazarus' death referring to it as having "fallen asleep". The disciples don't get this so Jesus puts it plainly "Lazarus is dead". That's what I'm talking about. That's the Jesus I can understand.

Today at the retirement home that we were visiting with the youth I offered an old lady my phone number. It was all innocent on my part, but I got in trouble from the youth for chatting up old women.

Brothers, Sisters, Corpse and Noodle

I had a BSBB training day today. It was interesting being in a non-Christian training environment. Especially a Children's/Youth one. It's been so long since I've been in the real world properly I couldn't work out why we didn't open and close with prayer. It was good though. Good to meet a group of people who aren't Christians and aren't all that interested in whether you're one or not. They all seemed like good people.

Then tonight David and I went to see Corpse Bride. Tim Burton is a twisted man, but probably a genius too. It was very good. Funny, charming, good story. I was impressed.

For the record, as an act of civil disobedience against Greater Union's silly allocated seating David and I sat where we wanted. I'm going to write a letter.

Afterwards David and I had dinner at Chef's Lucky Noodle. The Noodle is always great. We talked a lot about power imbalances, pastoral care, being a Christian super-hero, and mentoring. I enjoyed.

I also returned my DVD 5 days late and David's book 4 years late.

Chlorine

Last night we took the youth group to the Sydney Olympic Aquatic Centre. It was a massive logistical event. We planned all our car spaces down to the very last person, then had extra turn up and drivers pull out. I did a lot of organising on the fly. We even almost left without one person but we got them in the end.

Apart from being extremely self-conscious of having to run around in just a pair of boardies, I had a great time at the pool. Youth Group socials are one of my favourite parts of my job. They mainly just involve playing with teenagers. What more could you want? Pools are good fun.

Today, two showers and much soap later, I still smell like chlorine.

Fact of the Year

Botton is the 65444th most popular surname in the USA.

From here