Archive for the ‘Life’ Category

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Catch up

Sunday, March 7th, 2010

Life has been busy since my last post and I have had a fair amount to occupy my time. Consequently, blogging has taken second place to real life but, in the fashion of my good chum David, here’s a quick visual catch up.

Home made Cornish Pasties

SWMBO is a great if somewhat reluctant cook and regularly surpasses herself in serving up just the right dish at the right time.  In recent weeks, we have been treated to a few dishes and flavours that recalled memories of our life in England. One of these greeted my nostrils when I arrived home one evening recently.  A great and enticing smell wafting from the kitchen heralded a great supper of homemade Cornish Pasties which tasted as good as they looked.

Homemade goodies were supplemented with a few bits and bobs from the shops. On a recent trip to Countdown, our local chain supermarket, she picked up some English Marmite which, in my opinion and those of most other UK folk I know here, is far superior to the Aussie and Kiwi varieties.  However, even this tasty surprise was trumped by a lovely chunk of Tuxford & Tebbutt Cheshire cheese.  While the Kiwis make some good cheeses, I do miss the drier, crumblier and saltier British cheeses like my Dad’s favourite, Wensleydale.

Fush without chups

We headed into our local pet store a couple of weeks ago to check a few things out, little knowing that they were having an open day.  Having successfully deflected pleadings for another kitten or puppy, we left an hour later with a starter cold water aquarium but no fish.

The instructions from the very helpful fish lass in the store was that we set this up in the family room for a week, filling and treating the water so it could get a good stock of healthy bacteria in it before we introduced this fish.

Last week, SWMBO returned with the smallest of our four to choose the occupants and came home with a bug-eyed black eyed fish and a white and orange bug-eyed fish (the proper names elude me).  These were joined a few days back by the last of the additions to our menagerie, a skinny golden algae eater who vacuums the glass and stones free of algae.  There was a mild panic earlier today when this little fellow went missing. Presumed eaten by the other, he was eventually traced to the interior of the tiny amphora we had picked up for a dollar and sunk in the tank. Hopefully, he’ll come out before he grows too big to do so.

Never say never

With redundancy a real prospect later this year, I have started to be a little more intentional about seeking alternative work.  I have a few avenues to explore including a secondment that will see me working in a different area of my field in a very different environment.

To aid me in this and keep things neatly divided, I have grabbed up an HP Mini 210 netbook running Windows 7.  This is my first purchase of a personal computer running Windows in about 7 years. I like the form factor with the 10″ screen being a good compromise between the 7″ of my Eeepc’s and my iMac’s whopping 24″ screen.

It is early days yet but Windows 7 is also proving to be more user-friendly than the XP of my employer-supplied Omnibook or the Vista machines that friends moan about.  I am also trying to keep the apps to a minimum and use web-based stuff where possible, keeping the reasonable resources freed up for document writing, PDF work and the multi-tabbed browsing of desktop research.

The Agile Three

After church, SWMBO and I took our youngest to Scruffs, a local fun dog show.  We got there pretty late but had enough time to enter our Jack Russell/Maltese Terrier cross Abby into the scruffiest dog competition and give her a run out around the agility course.  In two clear runs around the course, Abby managed to reduce her time from 45 seconds to a very creditable 39 seconds, giving all three of us humans a brief but energetic workout at the same time.

We rounded off the day at a friend’s place, eating barbecue and salad whilst catching up on news and swapping offspring horror stories.

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Dear Kristine Elizabeth Hoffman

Sunday, February 21st, 2010

Dear Kristine Elizabeth Hoffman

I love the occasional and unintended glimpses of other people’s lives that I find in the second hand books I read.  I have been idly wondering about how many degrees, in this internet-connected global village of ours, separate two complete strangers whose only connection is a paperback book.  For instance, take the book above, Anne Lamott’s Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith.  It was one of three I received as a birthday gift a few weeks back, purchased by my wife in New Zealand over the internet from a secondhand bookseller in the US via the Amazon website and shipped via a friend’s address in the UK.

Why am I telling you this?  Because earlier today, halfway through chapter twelve, I came across a Delta boarding pass with your name on it. This, together with the window sticker that dropped from between the last few pages when I first opened the book a week or so ago, is the just sort of happenstance that intrigues me.  Are you a die-hard Lamott fan or a first time reader?  Are you strong in your faith or working through years of stuff like me? Do you ever wonder who else reads the books you read?

I’m no Sherlock Holmes but from the boarding pass it would seem that in late June. last year or the year before – the boarding pass is not yellowed or overly faded – you flew Delta between Salt Lake City and Atlanta.  Did you fly as a crew member on standby?  The pass is marked ‘NRSA’ which, Google tells me, stands for Non Revenue Space Available and means free seating for airline personnel and their family members. As for the ‘Montana Native’ sticker, who knows?  Maybe you’re a native Montanan flight attendant who deadheaded out of Helena down to the Atlanta hub via Utah after an early summer family reunion.

Oh, I almost forgot to ask – do you wear Vera Wang perfume?  I only ask because, when I checked the other two books, I found a ‘Bouquet’ perfume tester card wedged a third of the way through Grace (Eventually).  There again, there is every chance that book is part of an entirely different person’s story.

Blessings and happy reading!

bnug

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Messiah in the mall!

Thursday, February 18th, 2010
Most days, my early morning prayers include the hope that I might see Jesus during the day to come. Most days, I either don’t look hard enough or I look in the wrong place. Yesterday, I found Him in the mall – albeit not quite in the manner or place I expected -yet He was undeniably there.

Jesus? A choking hazard?

Messianic medicials, Batman!

Next time I’m there, I think I’m going to get me a Jesus for my dashboard and a Jesus for my glovebox.

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Dad & Daughter Camp

Sunday, February 14th, 2010

Motu Moana Camp 2010Motu Moana Camp 2010_2

I have just returned from an absolutely fantastic 48 hours attending the Kotare Brownie’s ‘Dad & Daughter’ Camp with my youngest daughter.  We joined fourteen other dads and girls for a weekend of adventure, campfires, tall stories and hot chocolate at the marvelous Motu Moana Scout Camp & Outdoor Activity Centre which set in native bush overlooking Green Bay and Manukau Harbour beyond.

To say that we had a good time would be an understatement.  In teams comprised of three daughters and three dads, we managed to pack in kayaking, archery, Burma trails, abseiling, challenge courses, bush tracking, quizzes, craft sessions and badge work in between the all important kitchen duties, tent inspections and ablutions block cleaning.

Over the last two days, I have seen a whole new side to my daughter which I never knew existed – the dedicated and responsible leader.  As a newly promoted sixer, she stepped up and took her role as leader of our group seriously.  Following her Mum’s advice to listen to others as well as talk, she played the diplomat and did a great job in shepherding the group and reporting back to Hoa, the pack leader.  For reasons best known to her, my daughter is an energetic and thorough toilet cleaner at home so I had to smile when I overheard her trying to inject her pals with the same enthusiasm while cleaning the men’s toilets yesterday!

I was also impressed by the selfless dedication of the three female leaders, Hoa, Kea and Ruru who give up their time to run the pack each week and do so much at these camps to provide the girls with a truly memorable time.  At campfire, Hoa wore a cloak that had badges awarded to her and her Mum, who was a leader before her, dating back 80 years.  The oldest badge on Hoa’s cloak was just a badge, hand made by Hoa’s mother in 1939.  During the Second World War, Guides and Brownies in New Zealand and Australia had to embroider their own camp, jamboree and merit award badges as they were unable to obtain them from England as they had done previously.

When I asked Hoa if the popularity of Guides and Brownies was dwindling in the face of competing attractions like iPods, computers and the Wii, her answer surprised me.  ‘No’ she said, ‘Brownies are as popular as ever and we have a waiting list three times bigger than we could handle as a pack – sadly, the thing we lack is leaders and helpers’. She went on to say that she thought the increase in mums working (or the need for mum to work) and adults increasingly looking for more ‘me’ time in their leisure hours meant less people were willing or able to volunteer.  Clearly, there are plenty of parents who want their girls and boys to get out of the house, mix with others, acquire new skills and learn about the wider world.  It is just a pity that so few of of us are willing or able to help them do so.

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iCake™

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

Another year on the planet, another cake but there’s a twist this year.

In previous years, She Who Must Be Obeyed has been the architect and builder of many a fine birthday cake for each member of the family.  However, this year, my birthday cake was created and decorated by my eight year old daughter.  The photo above shows the end result; the iCake™ is a fine representation of an Apple iBook – with innovative iDigestive™ mouse – detailed right down to the digital clock in the upper right corner and the Apple space image screen saver.

I love my family and am thankful everyday for the blessings and joy I know through them

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A work in progress

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

As mentioned elsewhere, I have been reading Matthew Paul Turner’s blog and enjoying his tweets for a while but I have never got around to checking out his books. That all changed yesterday, when we went shopping for soccer kit for our resident goalkeeper and then dropped into a bookstore nearby.  There, I found the very last copy of Turner’s Churched on the shelf.

Taking this as a nudge and having read a great sample chapter online, I bought the book and returned home to enjoy an afternoon siesta with a cup of bush tea in one hand and the book in another.  The first few chapters of the book explore the impressions of a young Turner as his parents leave the Methodist church of his early years to help plant a fundamentalist Baptist church.  Whether he’s describing the pastor’s wife – a piano-playing, hymn-singing Farrah Fawcett double – or getting his first ‘Jesus’ haircut from the unbeliever Mr Harry, Turner neatly sketches the claustrophobic world of church, law and eternal damnation through the eyes of a boy looking for straight answers to his questions.

The similarity of his descriptions of early church attendance – right down to the clip-on tie and Sunday-best shoes – made me think back to my Sunday school days at the Quaker meeting for worship I attended.  I have the utmost respect for Quakers and their theology but for those with excitable butterfly minds and single-digit ages, the traditional hour-long silent meetings for worship seems like an eternity.  With a whole world of fun, adventure and Sunday morning television cartoons just beyond the walls, it was impossible for me to understand why we were all sitting in silence, looking for God and the Spirit inside each of us.

Turner’s early religious experiences and teaching left him with distinct impressions of a hellfire and brimstone God of dos and don’ts whose return was to be eagerly but fearfully anticipated.  Mine simply left me bemused and adrift, unable to join the dots between the Jesus of the Sunday school stories and the quiet inner journey of the Quakers sitting silently in meeting.

Each meeting I attended as a youngster seemed like some alternative reality where time stood still.  Not matter my good intentions at the start of meeting, all too soon I would be scuffing my sandals on the pew in front and looking around for distractions.  The slow ticking of the old wall clock, drifting dust motes in the sunlight and the radiant calm of the worshipping faces all provided momentary interest but inevitably I would end up staring at the clock, incredulous that we had only been seated for barely 10 minutes and not the 59 I had carefully judged to have passed.

This realisation would mean that there was at least another 35 minutes to go before one or more of the Friends might (though only might, mind you) feel moved by the Spirit to speak to those present about some matter of import.  Such sharing would often be concerned with issues of peace or social justice, both of which are central in the beliefs of Friends.  With some embarrassment now, I can almost see myself innocently rolling my eyes and mouthing the word ‘Bo-o-ring!’ whilst concerned Friends spoke to the acts of despots, the dispossession of indigenous peoples and any number of bloody sectarian wars.

The alternative to sitting through meeting was to trot across the small courtyard to the Sunday school class in the adjacent hall.  To the best of my recollection, these would invariably be presided over by well-meaning women in tweed suits and sensible shoes.  I can almost taste the musty tang of that hall, feel the splintery roughness of the tables and smell the industrial-grade disinfectant all over again.

The hall was so cold in winter that no amount of frantic scribbling on the colouring templates of Jesus healing the sick could make the wax crayons to give up any colour to the butcher’s paper.  During the short British summers, we’d occasionally play a game in the courtyard, doing so very quietly so as not to disturb those in meeting.  More often than not though, we’d simply sit and listen to the deadpan delivery of another parable or Bible story, read from a book as old as Gutenberg.  While the faithful listened intently, I would conduct clandestine raids into the steamy fug of the the adjoining kitchen in search of biscuits, keen to locate and consume any chocolate ones lurking amongst the plain ones on the chipped plates along the counter. Soon enough, I’d be found out, given a disappointed look and shooed back to the parting of the Red Sea or recounting of how our missionaries were doing in Africa.

That said, I am truly grateful for my Quaker upbringing and experience of meeting for they have worked on and in me for years, helping to form my values, mould my opinions and prick my conscience along the way.  Indeed, amid the flurry of the last week of the summer holidays and the frenetic back-to-school preparations of four daughters, I can at last begin to appreciate the wonder and wisdom of spending an hour in silent contemplation and communion in the company of like-minded folk.  As I have just discussed with a good friend over lunch, it often hard to see the learning close up and so it is only with the passage of time and the accumulation of experience that we begin to understand and start to develop wisdom.  I remain very much a work in progress.

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Donald Miller on knowledge

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
Donald Miller

Donald Miller

Donald Miller has just posted a great piece about knowledge and how one might exercise it wisely and humbly.

If we acquire knowledge before we are emotionally healthy, that is if we are insecure, we are going to use it to boost our own ego and compare ourselves to others. The desire for knowledge will be like a need for a drug, then, pacifying a wounded spirit through comparative associations. Entire theological camps have been built and bolstered by this needy, angry, gluttonous desire for knowledge. But if we have confidence, if we are secure, knowledge humbles us. We realize that we did not invent truth, we simply stumbled upon it like food on a long journey.

If this resonates with you in any way or pricks your conscience as it did mine, you might like to read the full post entitled Knowledge Makes a Secure Man Humble.

P.S. @jonosands: if my half of our conversation earlier was anything like the story Don tells in his post, I need to be told!

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The Barnyard Wall

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

This morning, I listened to an interesting Connection Point podcast on the subject of choice.  In the podcast, Reuben Munn refers to the following modern parable by the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard and suggests that it might be an accurate expression of how many of us live out our lives.

A certain flock of geese lived together in a barnyard with high walls around it.  Because the corn was good and the barnyard was secure, these geese would never take a risk. One day a philosopher goose came among them. He was a very good philosopher and every week they listened quietly and attentively to his learned discourses. ‘My fellow travellers on the way of life,’ he would say, ‘can  you seriously imagine that this barnyard, with great high walls around it, is all there is to existence?

‘I tell you, there is another and a greater world outside, a world of which we are only dimly aware. Our forefathers knew of this outside world. For did they not stretch their wings and fly across the trackless wastes of desert and ocean, of green valley and wooded hill? But alas, here we remain in this barnyard, our wings folded and tucked into our sides, as we are content to puddle in the mud, never lifting our eyes to the heavens which should be our home.

The geese thought this was very fine lecturing. ‘How poetical,’ they thought. ‘How profoundly existential. What a flawless summary of the mystery of existence.’ Often the philosopher spoke of the advantages of flight, calling on the geese to be what they were. After all, they had wings, he pointed out. What were wings for, but to fly with? Often he reflected on the beauty and the wonder of life outside the barnyard, and the freedom of the skies.

And every week the geese were uplifted, inspired, moved by the philosopher’s message. They hung on his every word. They devoted hours, weeks, months to a thoroughgoing analysis and critical evaluation of his doctrines. They produced learned treatises on the ethical and spiritual implications of flight. All this they did. But one thing they never did. They did not fly! For the corn was good, and the barnyard was secure!

An English translation as quoted by Athol Gill, The Fringes Of Freedom: Following Jesus, Living Together, Working For Justice.(Lancer, Homebush West, NSW) pp. 30f.

While Reuben speaks to a predominantly Christian audience in his sermon, I think there is plenty of food for thought in the parable for everyone.  Reuben encourages and challenges us on whether we desire to escape the barnyard and experience the freedom of the skies or instead are simply content to live the life of  ‘practical atheists’ or ‘Sunday morning Christians’.  Regardless of our philosophical or faith position, this parable invites us to question whether we have settled for the known, the predictable and the safe in our lives or are we daring to scale the wall to explore the mysterious.

For Christians, the parable perhaps prompts us to examine whether we are just passively speaking to our faith (quite literally paying lip service), rather than actively living the life and modeling the behaviour witnessed in scripture.   Just yesterday, I made observations and criticised behaviours in others that I later came to see as hypocritical, in light of my own similar behaviour a few days earlier. 

It would seem I have some way to go before I clear that barnyard wall.

Reuben Munn is the pastor of Shore Community Christian Church, a ‘come as you are’ church in Albany, on Auckland’s North Shore in New Zealand.

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$1.88m Beckham match ‘wrong event, wrong time’

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

Click for full story

Dear Auditor General, those of us who coughed up to watch Edgar Davids run rings around an almost static Beckham would like a refund.  While we’re on the subject, how come Davids was playing for an Oceania XI All-Star team despite the fact he is not from Oceania and has never played for a club or national team in Oceania?

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I have a dream – redux in Uganda

Monday, January 18th, 2010

I have been following the writer Matthew Paul Turner for a while and find that he often has a new angle on some of the challenges we all face in life and faith.  He is currently in Uganda with World Vision for Uganda Week (click the image above) and is covering his activities extensively in blog – Jesus Needs New PR – and via his numerous tweets.

In a post earlier today (which will be Martin Luther King Day in the US), he pondered on what King’s dream might look like from the dusty streets of Uganda in 2010.

“On the flight from Amsterdam to Entebbe, I watched This Is It, the documentary about the making of Michael Jackson’s final concert series. Toward the middle, the film showcased a clip of Jackson singing/practicing his song “They Don’t Really Care About Us” from the album HIStory. Most of the song’s lyrics involve Michael lamenting injustice and inequality… then, toward the end of the song, he sings:

“Some things in life they just don’t wanna see/But if Martin Luther was living, he wouldn’t let this be.”

I realize that’s a big statement to make about any human being. However, Dr. King was indeed a man whose strong words against injustice were followed (and often led) with action. Simply offering big speeches and making grandiose statements was not in his character. Dr. King acted on the words he spoke. His actions were bold and loud and often scraped against the social norms of his time.?  As I prepare for my first day walking among Uganda’s poorest of the poor, I’m wondering how Dr. King’s dream relates to the children I will meet tomorrow in the hot dusty sands of the Gulu District in Northern Uganda. In honor of Dr. King’s day, I borrow the finale of “his dream” and rewrite it in perspective of what’s currently on my mind…“

It’s a brave man that rewrites one of the most famous speeches in modern history but there is no denying Turner’s passion and heart for his fellow man.  It certainly serves to remind me just how lucky I am and the vast catalogue of things I take for granted and should be continually thankful for.  Turner’s post also caused me to recall my own post five years ago about how our lives were fleetingly but indelibly touched as a result of the genocide in Uganda.

“A few years back, we befriended and worked to assist a single parent from Uganda in her challenge to make the enormous adjustment to settling in the UK after her escape. We helped her set up home and, when Christmas Eve arrived, we visited her with a few things like decorations and presents to give to her children. Satisfied that we had done what we could without patronising or embarrassing our new friend, we spent a happy Christmas Day morning opening the presents we had received from each other. Answering a knock at the door, we found our Ugandan friend standing outside with a large package wrapped in second-hand wrapping paper. Refusing to come in, she offered the package with a few words then turned and left. We opened the package to find a ‘Welcome’ door mat, the cheap woven kind that one would find in every pound-shop up and down the country. Knowing her weekly income was less than we would spend on a family meal out and that the pound she had spent on the mat was no small percentage, I was lost for words and stood there quietly with a lump in my throat. I am under no illusions whatsoever as to who received the greater gift.”*

I saw something of Jesus in our friend Mary that that day and I only have to close my eyes to see him again her blazing eyes and beaming smile. Once more, I am called to make a difference – will you answer the call too?

*Later edit: The echo of the parable of The Widow’s Offering in Mary’s gift has just struck me – perhaps that’s why her generosity causes me to catch my breath even now.

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