My friend Kelli won 3 kilos of chocolate in a bet.
She and Randall have doubled the chocolote
and are giving away easter eggs with an easter message
to kids in West Auckland, through a local foodbank.
Good on her
I like it when people take positive initiatives.
Let's be people who do more
than bemoan the fact that easter
has been reduced to chocolate eggs and bunnies.
Reminds me also of the eggs that sold last year at the Warehouse.
Several wee eggs arranged in cross shape.
On the cardboard backing was the easter story,
a picture to colour and an address
where they could send away for more easter info.
Great idea.
Need more of it!
This exhibition by Judy McIntosh Wilson
was fantastic.
Kayli and I wandered amongst the shells and stones.
We talked about how it reminded us of the sun
and the sea.
How it made us think of God
and forever.
There is such therapy in nature
such therapy in art.
I like art that makes me smile.
I encountered such a piece yesterday.
A ceramic in the Essential Forms exhibition
NZ piece with lines that flowed.
I walked around it
and followed the lines
and smiled.
Then walked around again
And smiled again.
Had a fabulous day off yesterday.
Paul was in Christchurch for a couple of days.
We enjoyed good food, good coffee, good wine, good company.
In cafes, bookshops, a gallery, a candlelit conservatory.
Wonderful how sustaining, how refreshing it is
to be with good people
doing relaxed and relaxing things
together.
Hmm
Good
PS Next time, you must come too, Kathryn!
The calendar in our toilet
shows two famous philosophers
observing a small snail, saying
A small yet grand discovery
May my life be sufficiently slow
that I get to make those
small yet grand discoveries
– seeing things for myself,
and taking a moment to appreciate them.
(The fore-mentioned philosophers
are Pooh and Piglet)
I read The Stepford Wives on Monday.
(Day off, trip to the library, 125 page book)
It’s by Ira Levin
the same guy who wrote,
“The Boys from Brazil”.
So I anticipated some menace,
an element of all being not as it seemed.
Unfortunately
I began to read the essay
that was printed before the story.
Such things should come
with a built in warning system …
“Alert, alert, this document
will destroy all elements of suspense.
Alert, Alert, this document
will give the plot away”.
Needless to say
I stopped reading the critical essay
and moved onto the story itself.
And here I should make my own warning:
“Alert, alert, this document
will destroy all elements of suspense.
Alert, Alert, this document
will give the plot away”.
It was written in the early 1970s,
when feminism was beginning to rise,
beginning to hit the middle classes.
A sad reflection on males
(one of whom moves from
semi-feminist
to wanting his wife to be a
(robotic!) sex goddess
-meticulous maid combination
after just one men’s group meeting.)
Sad!
The women
on the other hand
had to be done away with.
And replaced by fore-mentioned robotic versions
(bigger busts, and an insane desire for housework).
They were too strong
and stroppy otherwise.
A good read, I enjoyed it.
Entertaining, light, deep.
- interesting combination!
I met with a woman today
who attended the same secondary school as me.
She was perhaps five years behind me.
She remembered me.
More specifically she remembered my shoes.
And they were good shoes.
Last Footwear Company,
hand made to my foot’s measurements.
Reddish-brown leather,
Like T-bar without the T.
My Mum gave me the money
for a normal pair of school shoes,
and I added my hard earned
(twin-checking films at a photo processing lab)
after school money to upgrade
to the best shoes in the world.
I still really like them
and mourn their loss!
(don’t laugh I do!
I drool whenever I pass
the Last Footwear Company.
Steve has to restrain me.)
I have a similar pair now,
Reddish-brown leather,
Like T-bar without the T,
from Colorado.
Almost as good.
Also been resoled once.
They have walked many long miles
on the pavements of Onehunga
and Christchurch.
Want to know what was printed on the sole of the world’s best shoes?
Last Footware Company Last Footware Company Last Footware Company Last Footware Company Last Bloody Footware Company Last Footware Company Last Footware Company Last Footware Company Last Footware Company Last Footware Company Last Footware Company Last Bloody Footware Company Last Footware Company Last Footware Company Last Footware Company Last Bloody Footware Company Last Footware Company Last Footware Company Last Footware Company Last Footware Company Last Footware Company Last Footware Company
Which, I must confess, rather (wickedly!) appealed to me, trotting off to my school!
One of the things that
deeply encourages me
is when people are prepared to step
(or to live)
outside their comfort zones
for the sake of the others.
A survey I was involved with recently
asked people what they thought of
a denominational newspaper.
I was heartened when I read comments
from elderly people saying,
“I want to see more in this paper
of interest to children and teenagers”.
People can get exceedingly
caught up in their own needs and desires.
It is always refreshing
when they are prepared
to consider other’s needs, concerns and well-being.
(PS Why did the word well-being amuse me today?)
My spell check highlights well-being
suggests a change to well being.
I change it, as suggested.
It then highlights well being.
Suggests a change to well-being.
I change it, as suggested.
It then highlights well being.
Suggests a change to well-being.
Have I missed something here?
Just saved myself lots of work
by concatenating in Excel.
I was categorising churches
according to whether they are urban or rural,
and their average weekly attendance.
Nice to be able to click and drag
rather than having to re-enter data.
See, computers do save us time
(yeah right).
Steve went to “The Passion” on Tuesday.
He’s preparing to preach a series on
Meeting Mel’s Jesus.
His reflections on the movie can be found here.
(Note - it was there. Has now been embargoed awaiting print in Reality on April 19. It'll be back up then)
I confess,
I wasn’t at all disappointed that he went on his own,
when I was at work.
To be honest, I don’t really want to go.
Movies for me are about escapism and recreation
and I’m certain neither of those
would be my experience at “The Passion”.
But at the same time it is
one person’s portrayal of the story
that holds centre stage in my Christian faith.
So I think I will see it at some stage,
when I’m feeling brave!
I prefer the version of the Nicene Creed
where it says,
“He suffered, died and was buried”
To the one that says,
“He suffered death and was buried”
I have always preferred that former version.
In fact I remember as a teenager
feeling very disappointed when it changed
with the new edition of my church’s
Anglican (Episcopalian) Prayer Book.
Because the reality is that Jesus did suffer.
He must have.
Not just the indignity of death,
but the pain that was due to the way that he died
and the cruelty he endured before death.
But I have yet to see for myself
whether that is what is portrayed in “The Passion”.
When I go, I shall endeavour to go
(bravely, and) with an open mind.
I’ve only spoken to a handful of people
who have seen the movie.
I like the fact that it has encouraged them
to reread the Bible story for themselves
so as to be able to assess the “accuracy” of the movie.
That’s very good!
Very Berean!
I like the fact it’s in Aramaic.
It was after all!
And we westerners don’t have a mortgage on the Bible.
As The Mutton Birds remind us (ironically!)
(The Queen’s English wasn’t,
despite what one Texan senator believed,
“good enough for Jesus Christ”).
(Want to listen? mp3 of "Queen's English" here)
(Vegetarian) Steve and I are keen to go to the
Hokitika Wildfoods Festival one year.
Sounds like great fun.
I found the list of stallholders
(did I miss something or are they ALL food?)
Perhaps I'd come home a vegetarian again!
Steve would need to pack himself a lettuce sandwich.
... actually, perhaps we could sell lettuce sandwiches!
This is a great website.
All sorts of people and places and things most of us will never get to see.
Great pics.
I was particularly taken with the Mantis Shrimp from Papua New Guinea.
Perhaps the most startling is the Mantis shrimp, a robotic-looking critter with six eyes on articulated stalks. There are two common species, one with pincers that punch, and the other that uses it's forelegs to skewer prey like a shish kebab.
Odontodactylus scyllarus looks like some sort of bizarre alien dreamed up for a sci-fi movie! It is bright green with blue and red markings, has large claws and on top of the head are two golf-ball like eyes that rotate in all directions, completely independently of each other! These act as ‘range finders’, and amazingly, each eye has lobes resulting in trinocular sight. This allows ‘hexnocular’ vision when they use both eyes to look at a single subject … it makes you wonder what they see when they are watching us watching them!
It's a great world we live in.
I like the fact that there is such variety.
I think God might've had fun creating!
Found these two words on the floor this morning.
They must’ve fallen out of my Bible.
Somewhere there are a couple more.
They’re from the camp I was at on the weekend.
The words I chose to bring home, to remember.
On Sunday morning we had a worship service.
I gave people opportunity to reflect on the input
they’d received over the weekend so far.
One of the ways I did that was to have
notices on the walls –
like the ones you see on the
noticeboard at university, or perhaps in the supermarket –
with tear off strips at the bottom, to take away.
Two of the words I tore off are these:
Nourishment and Abundance.
Abundance –
because of the huge variety of people and gifts
there are in God’s world
and I want to appreciate them and celebrate them and honour them
Nourishment –
because I so need the nourishing that God offers
through the Bible,
through my relationships with others,
through the activity of God in my world.
It's nice how memories come back.
I discovered on camp that one of the women there
is the aunt of an old friend I met in 1985
and haven't seen in probably 12 or 13 years.
I had to do the track-back through the brain
of how did I meet Neil and how do I know him.
And enroute through my brain I had all these neat memories
of people and places and experiences
that I thought were gone and forgotten.
So thanks, Janette, for reminding me of Neil
thanks, Neil, for the fun we had
- with Jo and Joy and Tim and David and the others whose names escape me -
And, above all, thanks, God,
for the design feature of memories that can be recovered!
The Opawa women gave me a gift on Saturday night at camp.
Four gifts actually. Four things to symbolise each of the words:
Opawa Baptist Women’s Ministries.
“Opawa” was a resting place for Maori travellers,
a place to stop and rest.
So the Opawa women gave me a tri-pillow.
They gave me a platter to represent “Baptist”:
as in poor John the Baptist’s head on a platter.
It was head-less.
Some suggestion was made that I may like to select a head to go on it at a later date!
“Women” was represented by a basket of body lotion, soap and shower gel.
“Ministries” by a gift voucher to spend on something to enhance my ministry.
They made me very welcome!
Thanks!
A pastor planning a Korean church in Pakuranga
asked me for help the other day
... here's what I found out ...
Between 1996 and 2001 there has been a 42.3% increase
in the number of people in New Zealand who speak Korean.
The increase in the Auckland region has similarly been 42.7%.
Manukau City increased by 44.5%,
Pakuranga-Howick area increased by 43.7%.
I also supplied details of the numbers of people in each area unit
that speak Korean.
(Data skillfully excavated from www.stats.govt.nz, from 2001 Census)
Wanna know about another language?
About your area?
One of the things I do for a job is help people find the answers to questions like that.
People pay me to find out the answers to interesting questions...
what a life!
Felt so proud of Shannon (6) the other day.
“Mum, you know the bandanas we can buy
that raise money for people with cancer”
… yes …
“Next year I think we should just give the money,
cos we have all got a bandana, so we don’t need any more,
but we could just give them a donation instead”.
And I felt very proud of my
generous
non-consumptive daughter.
Long may she be so!
It’s coming.
After being a work-in-progress for a number of weeks,
Sunday morning’s session at camp
Is coming together nicely.
Having had 3 months “off” upfront involvement,
(between churches)
it’s nice to be back.
I'll be helping people gather what they’ve learnt over the weekend
into hopes and dreams they can take home with them.
This weekend is the Opawa Baptist Women's Camp.
Around 40 of us will be gathering
at what is apparently a very flash campsite -
Wainui, on Banks Peninsula,
for a weekend of fellowship, fun and recreation.
I'm not sure I've ever been on a women's camp before.
I'm looking forward to this one.
To spending time with women and getting to know them a bit.
It's nice to be in Chch
and have people around who can help Steve with the kids
and make it possible for me to be away
for the whole weekend.
The theme is the above,
"You never promised me a rose garden".
I'm speaking Saturday night,
basically introducing myself
and letting people know me a little.
The theme resonates with me.
I'm happy not to have been promised a rose garden.
I love the times when I do get to smell the roses.
And am glad of the support of the Gardener when life is tough.
But I think the last few months
have been the most Rose-Gardenish
that I have experienced in a long time.
It was so sad to leave Graceway
and all our friends there
and the fabulous church that it is,
but I have known God's abundance in so many ways
since we've been coming/been here
and it's a really nice season to be in.
Life has had times of being really hard...
but most recently there is a huge sense of peace
and quiet assurance of goodness.
It is a very nice season to be in!
Bother
Should have fixed template before confessing to selected friends that I blog!
Must ask Steve for help asap!
Came upon this in my research the other day.
It’s from a Ministry of Youth Affairs Strategy Document produced in January 2002.
It seems to apply to all people, not just youth. I like it’s healthy, holistic nature, especially of the outcomes.
The Principles of Youth Development
1. Youth development is shaped by the ‘big picture’
2. Youth development is about young people being connected
3. Youth development is based on a consistent strengths-based approach
4. Youth development happens through quality relationships
5. Youth development is triggered when young people fully participate
6. Youth development needs good information
In combination, these principles contribute to the desired result of positive youth development, where young people gain a
·Sense of contributing something of value to society
·Feeling of connectedness to others and society
·Belief that they have choices about their future
·Feeling of being positive and comfortable with their own identity
I was awarded a gold recycling bin this week... for being such a good recycler.
Christchurch City Council are giving away
2400 gold recycling bins to people who recycle well.
It is something I am committed to and obsessive about,
as anyone who has spent any length of time with me well knows!
I'm committed to reducing landfill
cos I consider it to be essential both environmentally and spiritually.
Part of worshipping God will all of me;
doing my very little bit to help take care of the world God made and loves.
We had a family Christmas in Lake Rotoiti, the North Island one.
9 adults, 6 children,
1 bach, 2 tents, 1 campervan, 1 sleepout.
I insisted we save everything for recycling
and eventually found the best wee recycling centre I have ever come across
(but that's another story)
When it came time to leave, we packed up our car; 2 adults, 2 girls
with all our stuff for our move to chch
and on top (of me!) went the remaining recycling.
Visibility was not enhanced by the box of bottles, tins, paper and cardboard on my lap.
My sister tried to make off with a plastic milk bottle, but my environmental-antennae noticed...
And we set off for the 10km trip into the recycling station
en route for the 2 day trip to Christchurch.