Some days sights stand out like an artwork or cherished memory. They weave together like poetry and I wonder if this is the result of sunshine, a [...]
Hungrythirsty is a not a new idea in fact it’s not an idea
it would be more like a feeling.
When your are hungrythirsty you know you need something more
than a new car, Mad Men on Blueray or free food at the footy
and so you use two words to mask your fear.
I wish I’d seen a bearded lady at the fairground.
Only kidding, but I did grow a beard once, no kisses.
The best thing to kill hungrythirsty dead is the Oak of righteousness
we killed dead and left temporarily in a basement, or tomb as it were.
And that’s why He called himself Bread of Life Living Water -
full strength, full taste, full on!
Nails through his hands but all fingers intact.
Do you know what hungrythirsty is? No. Are you stupid?
My brother is, he’s in a basement.
Hungrythirsty is when you are neither hungry or thirsty
but a bit of both.
And there is only one cure for hungrythirsty and that’s Oak.
With its full strength and full taste it’s full on!
Evening.
I wish I’d fed my son Oak when he was growing up.
Just kidding, I don’t have a son.
Well technically I do, but he’s in real estate.
I am sitting on the side of the bed in our house in Calwell contemplating getting an early night.
The phone next to me rings. I pick it up and say hello, and hear my father’s voice.
My memory now shifts to a view of myself sitting hunched over, head in my hands, phone receiver to my ear, listening as my father tells me my sister Melissa has been found dead.
His voice is breaking, tearful, shocking and yet somehow still conveys an unshakeable sense of goodness and innocence that I cannot reconcile with the words he speaks.
There is something about her body being found, something about a dam, something about maybe it is suicide or maybe it something else. I’m not sure if he used the word murder.
From there I remember in snatches, my wife’s concern, my retelling of the conversation, her embrace.
An overwhelming desire grips me to drive right then and there to Newcastle and sort this out. Logically I know I can do nothing to change what I’ve heard. But instinctively I feel driven to protect, resolve, make good.
On days like today I still feel this restless urge, that if somehow I go and see and am present, Melissa will be ok. That’s probably why I am writing now. I’ve seen this grief response in others and at least this helps me understand.
On a day when the whole nation remembers the deaths of many, my family will, each in their own way, remember one. I’m sure we are not the only ones.
There is a murderer out there somewhere who has never been held to account. Maybe he remembers today as well. Or maybe he remembers a date a few days earlier when Melissa’s life was actually taken, before being dumped into the remote Burrenjin Dam only to be “found by a Sydney couple four-wheel driving with friends” on April 25.
I wonder who this couple is and the horror of what they saw? I wonder about the terror of Melissa’s final moments. I wonder about the police investigation and DNA reports and DPPs and cold case units, all of which seem to have vanished for us.
I wonder if my parents and Melissa’s children will ever receive justice? I wonder when we can reclaim Melissa from this act of violence. It is one thing to go on, to keep living, to eventually smile and laugh and feel again. It is another to feel the strength of justice straighten your back and lengthen your gaze.
I know that Melissa is with God because I know what faith was sown in her heart and what cry was on her lips with her last breath. I know this because of the hope within me.
Whatever happened to living for something bigger than yourself? Whatever happened so that ‘whatever’ became the norm?
We have lost a measure of ourselves and so count many things as bigger and better which are much smaller and meaner than the human soul.
If we have a truer perspective of our own worth we will stop dying for trinkets and begin to live for real treasure.
If a human being contains eternity then the universe is not bigger than your next door neighbour or your own frail self.
Here’s a few other things that aren’t bigger. Well, actually, things aren’t bigger. Things with screens, scenes and sounds. Things with wheels and walls and warranties. Things with serial numbers, magnetic strips and passwords.
Fame is tiny, celebrity infinitesimal, popular opinion undetectable. The sword is nothing to live or die by and the pen is not mightier and might is not right for the selling of the soul.
We elevate intellect, emulate beauty, overrate strength. We make much of little and make little of ourselves and of others and the ties that bind and the ideas and love and kindness and loyalty that make us real, and not plastic.
Don’t get me wrong, many of the things mentioned are deeply valuable, highly prized but they pale next to you, your family, friendships, marriage, faith, hope and love – your beautiful, resilient being.
And life so rarely allows room for seeing that if we live for less we are diminished. Let us find and live for greatness which is not defined by television ratings or internet hits or dollar bills. If we are going to have all those things in our life let us not be ruled, or worse, defined by them.
People who live for small things don’t risk their life for what they believe is right. They comment from safe places. People who are diminished by worshipping false idols don’t spend themselves for the sake of others. They send a few dollars from a distance and look for the tax receipt.
We can start out living for greatness, beyond ourselves, but disappointment, loss, fear and the fine, fine voices of deceit can cause us to lose our way. We compromise and the dust of this world becomes surprisingly hard to see past.
I’ve had my times in this place of constriction but once you have tasted heaven, dust sticks in your throat and despite your weakness, you must seek the fresh air and live for more.
There are many of you out there getting smaller by the minute, dust swirling. I call you back to yourself, I call you back to even more. But don’t listen to me. The One who places eternity in jars of clay is calling. And there’s nothing bigger.
Some days sights stand out like an artwork or cherished memory. They weave together like poetry and I wonder if this is the result of sunshine, a good night’s sleep or a trick of the eye.
Walking past the sandstone of St Andrew’s Cathedral, a man looking like a troubled disciple urinates against the wall, hidden by a low, non-burning bush. While some find comfort within, he’s found relief outside.
Two pastel green motor scooters sit side by tidy side on Clarence St except one is within the parking area and the other without. A female parking inspector stands upright in judgement like a robot from a sci-fi movie and separates the two on a point of law.
Later an office worker strides down Kent, security card swinging, and a hand held to her face, covering tears. She walks on looking sideways in anguish but not slowing, tears not moving a busy soul.
A young Indian woman with flowing hair sits on the ground in the foyer staring at a water bottle in front of her, lid off. I think she might be hit by the door if someone comes down the stairs but I leave her to her vigil.
Rupert Murdoch has been hailed as an entrepreneurial risk-taker in launching a Sunday tabloid into the “mature and declining” market of printed newspapers with his launch of the Sun on Sunday.
This has not deterred Dennis Prince from launching The Regal Standard, as a direct challenge to the second Global Atheist Convention to be held in Melbourne from April 13 to 15.
The semi-retired pastor co-founder of Kingston City Church and long-time publisher of Resource Christian Music has produced a (presumably) one-off 12 page tabloid to counter the convention being held “in our backyard – on our watch”.
“If this event were to be held in, say, New York, we would expect Christians there to unite boldly and decisively to honour God and proclaim his greatness. That lot has instead fallen on us,” Dennis says on The Regal Standard’s website.
Dennis told Fairfax Media that he “has a tiger by the tail” by creating the Regal Standard, designed to counter atheist arguments. Fairfax reports that there are already orders for 25,000 copies of the 12-page tabloid, which will be distributed to churches, dropped in letter boxes, given to the curious, and sent to convention speakers.
‘Mr Prince… felt God telling him that the convention was happening on his watch, and he had to respond. He has spent $5000 and some 300 hours producing the paper, and needs to sell 45,000 at an average of 20¢ each to recover his costs.’
Dennis advocated for a positive but energetic response to the convention that would stimulate thought and conversation but could see the gullible “led down the garden path”.
Speakers at the convention include Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Peter Singer, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and, perhaps somewhat in the “den”, Marion Maddox, who with a PhD in Theology will participate in panel discussions. (Marion and my paths crossed when we were both children living in and around the Uniting Church’s old Leigh College in South Strathfield…).
Christopher Hitchens is also pictured on the speakers page for the convention, perhaps a sign that the atheist’s are slightly enamoured with the idea of life after death…
I bought them from a department store for a few dollars four years ago, not the coolest or the most expensive but they did the job.
They’ve flipped through the sand playfully and rested on tiles prayerfully with Bali’s beautiful peopleThey made an accidental appearance at Wimbledon, and may have suffered a dollop of warm cream from my strawberries.
A European summer was a fitting environment for these fine friends and not to be outdown by more practical measures
They tasted the dust of Rome’s ancient paths
Cooled in the light blue waters of Venician canalsStood beneath David’s marble features in Florence, dashing through the piazzas.
Not to be outdown by time and distance, they found their place in India’s complex culturesShopping for sarees on Commercial St, BangaloreA dash of tea near a St Thomas church on a steamy afternoon
The sands of Chennai clinging and the blood of the martyr as close as could be
And then there are the wonders of our broad landCarried along the in the far north during a Cape Tribulation stroll
The sounds of Italy and the smell of garlic down Leichhardt streets
windmill on a Brisbane hill looked down on my friends
The trams of Melbourne could not shake us apart
And many other places
But in the end, after taking eveything I could throw at them
Or even when I threw them at anything, many times
They have been undone by nothing more
Than the little cuts and grinds of wear and tear
And though my trust remains strong
My fellow travellers are approaching their last journey
Growing up in Taree from about 1967-72 I was the proud owner of a purple dragster bicycle.
Not indentical, but a close match for the dragster I use to ride. This one, an original, is selling for $2,800...
High-rise handle-bars, a T-bar gear shifter midway along the top-tube (in hindsight, perilously located), and banana seat with sissy bar meant I was the height of late-60s, early-70s bike-riding fashion… something that escaped me as a nine or ten-year-old.
I can still recall riding around Nicoll Cres with my friends singing Bopping the Blues (Blackfeather, 1972 – not that I actually knew who the band was at the time) or pedalling down to the corner store for a 15c can of soft drink. Saxby’s I think.
I can also recall my mother giving me a sheet of flouro pink stickers that had Christian mottos or sayings on them for the purpose of encouraging people to think about God.
When I started riding the bike to school, we attached a bike rack at the back (I’m finding this hard to imagine but I know it’s true because my school case once fell off it in the middle of the road outside Taree West Primary School and while scooping my belongings back in, I found about 15 cigarettes lying there and scooped them in too – but that’s another story).
Anyway, we used to park our bikes in racks at the side of the school and I can distinctly remember two boys, walking past as I was preparing to leave for the day, stopping, reading the sticker, laughing and moving on.
The good news was that they appreciated the humour of the flouro pink sticker and this saved me from a moment of ridicule which I had been fully expecting.
The sticker read:
‘If God seems far away, guess who’s moved?’
Now, in 2012, this is an extremely old line which still gets trotted out. But in the late 60s, early 70s – it was brand new.
And the saying has remained associated with these memories ever since. Of my purple dragster, of my mother’s eager new faith and desire to share it with others, of my own childlike faith and an innocence in putting my beliefs on the line, of wearing green button-up shirts to school, drinking warm flavoured milk in small foil-lidded bottles at recess and falling off the monkey bars and smashing my head open one lunchtime (yet another story).
Forty years on and recently I have paused to reflect on the whole idea of our relative location to God and the reality of him feeling far away.
If I had my time again, and was a wise nine-year-old, I would say to those two older boys, as I say to you:
‘Everyone is moving all the time and often without even knowing it. But wherever we go and how ever we get there, God is never far away, even if that’s what we feel. We may take 10,000 steps away from him but it’s always only one step back.’
The past few years have seen some changes in my life that I could never have anticipated, to do with who I thought I was and what I was doing with my life. A lot of movement occurred, often outside my control, but thankfully the most important things of life – faith, marriage, family, health – have remained true and near. God has indeed seemed distant, often, and yes, it was me who moved in those times.
But if God seems far away to you today, he isn’t. He’s close enough to whisper in your ear and know the longings of your heart.
Lying forlornly in the dirt, like a yellowing tomb slit open, is the remains of an early season tomato from my garden that didn’t quite make it to the plate.
Sydney’s unseasonally damp summer has meant the vigorous tomato plant this specimen came from is long gone, afflicted by various diseases and my lack of care on occasions when life got too busy.
This shell-of-a-tomato was most likely not picked and taken inside for human consumption because it was marked or damaged or being eaten by a worm… In other words, it was rejected.
I know a Man who takes rejection, accusation and being cast aside and turns them into new life. He did it with his own life, saying, ‘unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone’.
February is late for growing tomatoes but no one mentioned this to my cast-aside tomato and without any assistance from myself, a veritable forest of tomato seedlings have emerged from their yellowing tomb.
With Sydney’s weather finally providing some sunshine and still plenty of rain, the young seedlings are thriving.
It’s not easy growing vegetables in an inner city town house. Pots are used, mainly, and these have to be carefully positioned to find sun and escape birds and the occasional visiting rat. (And Leroy our dog is known to occasionally pluck a tomato or strawberry for his own illegal consumption…)
It also means carrying pots and soil and shovels through the house to get to one courtyard or another, making an exercise such as repotting tomatoes a logistical challenge.
During the process I carried one of my new self-sown seedlings to another courtyard and realised I was carrying life in the palm of my hand. I also realised it was one of those ‘stock-photo-moments-of-hand-with-seedling-depicting-new-life’.
There is something about gardening that is renewing. Or perhaps the renewing comes first and then the energy to garden emerges. A bit of both I think.
As the cricket starts, and the sun bites, I’ve finished my little project and that pale shell of a tomato womb has birthed an array of seedlings, some already flowering, ready to greet the final month or so of summer warmth in Sydney.
There is not a soul among us who has not had at least a moment of being cast aside, left for dead, and lying in the dirt alone.
There is a God who showed himself as one of us, who placed pictures of death and resurrection among us as reminders and who died an earthly death so he could share a heavenly life with many, many sons and daughters.
No doubt he is enjoying my tomatoey resurgence and if even one of these offspring is as productive as the original (bought from a stall at Leichhardt Public School fete), then we will enjoy a feast of home-grown tomatoes as the seasons approach change.
“I am still modeling but only with brands that respect my decision not to wear lingerie,” tweeted former Victoria’s Secret model Kylie Bisutti, aged 21.
The Californian Christian won Victoria’s Secret Model Search ahead of 10,000 other girls in 2009 but has quit the company because of her Christian values.
“Victoria’s Secret was my absolutely biggest goal in life, and it was all I ever wanted career-wise,” she told FOX411.
“I actually loved it while I was there, it was so much fun and I had a blast. But the more I was modelling lingerie – and lingerie isn’t clothing – I just started becoming more uncomfortable with it because of my faith. I’m Christian, and reading the Bible more, I was becoming more convicted about it.”
Her comment that “her body should only be for my husband” was widely reported, and ridiculed, but for Kylie “it’s a sacred thing”.
“I didn’t really want to be that kind of role model for younger girls because I had a lot of younger Christian girls that were looking up to me and then thinking that it was okay for them to walk around and show their bodies in lingerie to guys.”
She has a number of career opportunities ahead including an appearance with Jennifer Lopez and will continue to model for companies that respect her decision not to model lingerie.
“It is a very hard industry to be in without falling into things you don’t want to do,” she said.
Husband Mike had apparently prayed that Kylie might come to this decision but allowed her to reach it in her own time.
In a world where people do anything to achieve success, particularly if it involves celebrity, it is encouraging to see someone allow their conscience to guide their decisions and trust God with the outcome.
“Tonight, we ask ourselves how do we speak to this time, to this day. There is no way around this, there’s been a death in our family. And at least for me, for me, the only thing that seems right to me is to begin with a prayer.”
And so LL Cool J begins the 2012 Grammys in Los Angeles, leading the large group of celebrities, many with heads bowed, in a prayer for Whitney Houston.
“Heavenly Father, we thank you for sharing our sister Whitney with us. Today our thoughts are with her mother, her daughter and all of her loved ones. And although she is gone too soon, we remain truly blessed to have been touched by her beautiful spirit, and to have the legacy of her music to cherish and share forever. Amen.”
Prayer is so often the cry of our heart in the midst of tragedy and joy and many other circumstances.
If you are in need of prayer and are struggling for the words, simply express yourself as you would to a good friend and believe that God who loves you is listening. For more prayer help, visit Wesley Mission’s prayer page or Hillsong’s prayer and support page.
“However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.”
They made an accidental appearance at Wimbledon, and may have suffered a dollop of warm cream from my strawberries.
Stood beneath David’s marble features in Florence, dashing through the piazzas.
The sands of Chennai clinging and the blood of the martyr as close as could be
Carried along the in the far north during a Cape Tribulation stroll
Dennis Prince refuses to let atheist convention go unchallenged
This has not deterred Dennis Prince from launching The Regal Standard, as a direct challenge to the second Global Atheist Convention to be held in Melbourne from April 13 to 15.
The semi-retired pastor co-founder of Kingston City Church and long-time publisher of Resource Christian Music has produced a (presumably) one-off 12 page tabloid to counter the convention being held “in our backyard – on our watch”.
“If this event were to be held in, say, New York, we would expect Christians there to unite boldly and decisively to honour God and proclaim his greatness. That lot has instead fallen on us,” Dennis says on The Regal Standard’s website.
Dennis told Fairfax Media that he “has a tiger by the tail” by creating the Regal Standard, designed to counter atheist arguments. Fairfax reports that there are already orders for 25,000 copies of the 12-page tabloid, which will be distributed to churches, dropped in letter boxes, given to the curious, and sent to convention speakers.
Dennis advocated for a positive but energetic response to the convention that would stimulate thought and conversation but could see the gullible “led down the garden path”.
Speakers at the convention include Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Peter Singer, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and, perhaps somewhat in the “den”, Marion Maddox, who with a PhD in Theology will participate in panel discussions. (Marion and my paths crossed when we were both children living in and around the Uniting Church’s old Leigh College in South Strathfield…).
Christopher Hitchens is also pictured on the speakers page for the convention, perhaps a sign that the atheist’s are slightly enamoured with the idea of life after death…
PDF sample of The Regal Standard
Atheist Convention 2012
Some Utterance encounters with atheism…
Atheists sick of atheists
Atheism led me to faith
Ethic classes new atheism in slim disguise
Or search the tag atheism
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Posted by Peter Hallett on February 27, 2012 in News, Comment, MediaMoments, Religion, Society and tagged atheism, Dennis Prince, Global Atheist Convention, Marion Maddox, The Royal Standard, Rupert Murdoch.
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