a quote from Sojourners Community

The Creator goes off on one wild, specific tangent after another, or millions simultaneously, with an exuberance that would seem to be unwarranted, and with an abandoned energy sprung from an unfathomable font. What is going on here? The point of the dragonfly’s terrible lip, the giant water bug, birdsong, or the beautiful dazzle and flash of sunlighted minnows, is not that it all fits together like clockwork—for it doesn’t, particularly, not even inside the goldfish bowl—but that it all flows so freely wild, like the creek, that it all surges in such a free fringed tangle. Freedom is the world’s water and weather, the world’s nourishment freely given, its soil and sap: and the creator loves pizzazz.
- Annie Dillard Teaching a Stone to Talk

Bernard's poem

My friend Bernard Thornton writes poems - the ones I see are often related to conversations we have - he picks up something and takes it somewhere special. His latest came through a couple of weeks ago and he wasn't unhappy about it appearing in the blog...

Disciple

For our New Year’s resolution
let us agree
to find new ways
of letting things
enter us

shoals
simply having the faith
to put out our nets
without question
without anxiety concerning outcomes

let us be ready
standing quietly
patiently
at the edge of things
listening looking

Bernard Thornton

Barack Obama

Anne and I are big fans of Barack Obama - the attached speech on reconciling faith and politcs from 2006 is very interesting... we hope he makes it this year but are nervous about monsters with guns in the land of polarisations.

http://www.barackobama.com/2006/06/28/call_to_renewal_keynote_address.php

Power, madness & victory Part 2

the rant on power etc from last Tuesday turned into the following sermon by Sunday...

http://www.ststephens.co.nz/ministry/sermons/collection/20080127.1201313698.php

folly of our ways

Foolishness
by Bertrand Russell

Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all; we have chosen, instead, to have overwork for some and starvation for others. Hitherto we have continued to be as energetic as we were before there were machines; in this we have been foolish, but there is no reason to go on being foolish forever.

Source: In Praise of Idleness
from: inward/outward

Thoughts on the church and power

I'm enjoying receiving daily 'thoughts' from the 'inward/outward' site of the Church of the Savior in Washington DC. You even get a chance to interact! Here's one thought they sent a couple of days ago and my interaction - these can be viewed at http://www.inwardoutward.org/?p=620


Moving From Talk to PowerWritten by admin January 24th, 2008 in on the way
By John Perkins
If we as Christians can see the issues of our day—the poverty, the racism, war and injustice—and if we can use the skills and resources that we get from our training at school or on the job, and if we can really be open to being equipped by the Spirit of God, then we will be used. We must lie on our beds at night and wrestle with how we can individually and collectively bring our faith from talk to power, how we can bring our faith and works to bear on the real issues of human need.
I believe that right now we are facing a most difficult time in history. We are discovering that old strategies have failed and that the new ones, or rediscovered ones, will not let us hold onto our old lifestyles.
Source: A Quiet Revolution

and...
Martin Stewart Jan 24th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Parts of John’s words work for me and other parts cause concern - without a doubt he is right to say that our faith should move to action. But what kind of action. His use of the word power (instead of action) makes me nervous. Being a Power is not the calling of the church - rather we are to call the powers to account and remind them of their vocation which is to serve. Excellent work on this has been done by Marva Dawn in recent times, and the likes of Jacques Ellul and William Stringfellow in the past 50 years. If we become a power and powerful then we will oppress, we will cause injustice, etc. Our posture before the world is that of Christ - who acted, spoke out and exposed the powers, and then submitted to them. He never called us to power, but to serve.

Prayer

A man prayed, and at first he thought that prayer was talking. But he became more and more quiet until in the end he realized that prayer is listening.

- Søren KierkegaardChristian Discourses

Power, madness & victory

Today's news... kind of bleak really - that five top military advisors to Nato and the US are promoting the idea of pre-emptive nuclear strikes as a way of the West protecting their way of life and dealing with other countries that are going down the nuclear weapons road. Great! Here is the way to handle people different from us - hit them with the very thing we want to discourage them from having! Yeah right! Why is the military option always the only option? In what ways does escalation and threat prevent a repsonse of escalation and threat?
God help us!
I popped onto the website of The Press the Christchurch daily, and here is a fairly sad list of what else is going on...

More World Stories
Zimbabwe opposition challenges protest ban
Sick Indonesian man has bird flu
Russia to investigate opposition challenger
Militants kill five Pakistani troops
Chess champion Bobby Fischer buried in Iceland
Transport problems persist in flooded UK
No peace deal if Israel keeps building
Diana bodyguard to reveal details of her final moments
Double killing shocks Tonga
Israel agrees to ease Gaza blockade after protests
Italy govt wobbles as party withdraws support
US White House contenders celebrate King legacy
Musharraf pledges free elections
Beijing denies 10 deaths at Olympics stadium
Heavy rains kill 17 canoeing on Zambia lake
Parliament challenges Brown on EU treaty
Bomber kills 15 at funeral in northern Iraq
Israeli blockade deepens hardship in Gaza
Security breach after UK defence ministry laptop stolen
Ukraine family seeking asylum saved from Swiss Alps
Kenya condemns opposition 'sabotage' plan
France's oldest man - a WW1 vet - dies
Top Fiji businessman slams military regime
Graffitists swept to death in Sydney drain
Nationalist ahead in first round Serb president vote
New pictures of Madeleine 'suspect' released
Metal detectors to fight knife crime in British schools
McCain, Clinton look to next White House battle
Lights go out in Gaza as power plant shuts down
Man dies after police taser gun shot
Cambodian police block Mia Farrow's rally
McCain expects to do well in Florida
Japan follows Europe by tapping offshore wind for power
Three killed in Kenya clashes, opposition defiant
Pakistan forces press attack on militant stronghold
Georgia, Russia pledge better ties at inauguration
Mountain searched after Angolan plane crash

Sometimes it is getting hard to breathe and I need to go up for air...
I subscribe to a daily 'thought' from the Church of the Savior in Washington and got the air I needed today from these words of William Stringfellow (one of my heroes)

"It is worse than you think it is and you are freer than you think you are. The powers are raging beyond your control and they are already overcome in Christ. The division is an uncrossable spiritual chasm and it's been crossed."
Source: Conference on Religion and Race, Chicago, 1963

We Christians live into another reality - the victory won and the kingdom coming... it is our Christ-given, hopeful, radical posture before ther world with all its travail and woe... "God help us, God give me hope. Amen."

http://inwardoutward.org/

Sir Edmund Hillary

I was writing to a correspondent from North Carolina yesterday and mentioned the following about Sir Edmund Hillary's death: "We are mourning the loss of Sir Edmund Hillary over here – he died last Friday… he kind of epitomizes what kind of people we like to think we [NZers] are… he was humble and generous to the poor… not a bad role model really!
The Maori people of New Zealand talk of the death of a significant person as being like a mighty Totara tree falling… it makes a big noise and leaves a huge gap in the landscape. That’s how it feels here."


One of the early images of Sir Edmund epitomises the man... while he is credited with being the first to summit Mt Everest, he actually was there because of a partnership with the local Sherpa, Tenzing Norgay... that partnership proved in time to be more than a means to an end to get up the mountain, it became a partnership with a people. Sir Ed used the prestige bestowed on him to serve the impoverished Nepalese people. That's the kind of person I admire. I have less and less time for people who use their fame to satiate their egos. Sir Ed's humility was one of his most endearing qualities.
Here are few quotes of his that illustrate that humility:
"It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves."
"People do not decide to become extraordinary. They decide to accomplish extraordinary things."
"You don’t have to be a fantastic hero to do certain things – to compete. You can be just an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated."

Perhaps the best one is his thought that it wasn't so much that he conquered the mountain but that the mountain relented to let them up.

Truck progress #15

We are over the $20,000 mark now - $20,810!! Any money over the $20,000 purchase price will be used to enable maintenance - this money will be held in the Global Mission Office. Yesterday we got a donation from a couple who had already donated last month! Great!