Dark Days at the Rooftop Cinema

Tonight we went to the Rooftop Cinema at Curtin House, to see Dark Days, a documentary film about people who live underneath New York City. Mark had been given some free tickets to the film, because the guy who owns it came to visit Credo a little while ago. It was a little strange being on a roof other than our own, because it seemed like all the buildings were in the wrong place.
The film was interesting. It seemed that while most of the people shown in the film knew each other and hung out together, they were very independent, and mostly just looked after themselves. While the film was being made, the people were evicted from the subway where they were living, and given housing. Unfortunately you don't get to see how they might have been going a few years after their eviction, though.

Sri Lankan asylum seekers

Last week 83 Sri Lankan asylum seekers were intercepted by the Australian Navy, near Christmas Island, and the Australian government is planning to send them back to Sri Lanka without giving them a chance to apply for asylum in Australia.
There's an article about it here, from the Townsville Bulletin.
Tim Jeffries has posted some info here on Advoc8 about who to write to about this, and what to bring up.

MLC retreat day

Today we were hosting the year twelves from Methodist Ladies College, for their Religious Education retreat day. (It's their one day of RE for the year.) Several of us were up most of last night getting stuff ready.
This is Marcus being overhelmed in the Land of Easter Eggs:

And this is when Marcus lost his pen under one of the shelves in the Land of Easter Eggs:

And this is a special little installation me and Ray and Stella did for the elevator:

What took most of the time was setting up the contemplation and prayer stations in the sanctuary. (I helped with that last year.) This is what they looked like last night before they'd had prayers written all over them:

Today I was taking groups of students on city walks with Brent and Kate, while Marcus was looking after the installation in the sanctuary, and Simon was running nonviolence workshops to do with competition.
Took these pictures of some of the prayer stations at the end of the day:

(The international time map is from this screensaver.)
If you want to make some slightly coherent sense of what the stations were all about, read what Marcus wrote about last year's MLC retreat day.

Even young men grow weary

Some time last week I was projecting photos through my window onto the adjacent building, late into the night.

And I found this note attached to a TV in a church I visited the other day:

I've been way too busy for a little while, and hadn't had much of a break for eight days, plus I didn't have much of a break over the Christmas/New Years holidays, so I've just been on leave for a few days, staying at Gin and Jeff's place and not doing very much except reading and writing and drawing ...

... and watching Monty Python films. I came back this afternoon, and read this piece of scripture, which someone or other that used to live here stuck up in our toilet:

I was thinking that people who put their trust in God will probably run and don't grow weary because they realise that God doesn't need them to always be running, and so they're making sure they get enough rest.
When I went down to the office there was a parcel from the US. It was a Christmas present! (I took part in the Relevant messageboard Chris Cringle thing last Christmas, and we were wondering why my present hadn't arrived yet.) One of the things in the parcel was a new candle, so I've had that going.

I feel much better having had some rest.

New shoes

Yesterday John was in Melbourne on his way back to Adelaide from Sydney (via Canberra, Sale and Traralgon) so he came and had lunch at Credo, and then I got a lift with him to Ballarat, to get some new shoes, because there's a shoe factory in Ballarat, and so you can get decent shoes pretty cheap. I got my old pair of shoes there in 2004. This is what they look like now though:

We also saw a few people we were friends with when we lived in Ballarat, which was nice.
Took these on the train back to Melbourne last night, going through Bacchus Marsh and the western suburbs:

Evening prayers on the fire escape

Last year the five of us who live here didn't pray together as a group very much. So this year we've decided that those of us who are here at 9pm each evening will meet between level 7 and level 8 on the fire escape to pray.

Weird Indian toe-socks

Gin and Jeff got back from India on the weekend. After work today, Gin gave me these weird toe-socks she got in Calcutta:

She got some for Ray as well. They're supposed to be for wearing with thongs (flip-flops). And they're supposed to be skin-coloured.

Gembrook

Coke and water

I've just done a post on Advoc8 about Coke's water use. Click here to read it.

Going to Gembrook

Tomorrow we're going out to Gembrook for our Urban Seed residents retreat, so we can get to know each other a bit better. I have to come back Saturday night, so I can go to work the next morning.
Seeds gatherings at the Den (116 Little Bourke Street, Chinatown) start again Sunday night, and Credo lunches start again on Tuesday.

Credo renovations

We've been doing a bit of work in Credo the last few weeks, like cleaning, painting, getting indoor plants and rearranging everything.


Last week I cleaned the flu in the kitchen, which has supposedly never been cleaned before. (Normally Uncle Smithamsy tells new volunteers that it's their job to clean the flu.)I spent most of today priming the flu, and hopefully I can get it painted before cook on Wednesday. (That's probably not very likely though!)