Was walking along Birrarung Marr this afternoon, and noticed all of these fish sculptures being put together on barges along the Yarra River. I presumed they must have been for the Commonwealth Games. Apparently there's one for each country that will be competing. Took some pictures.
Melbourne, Commonwealth Games, Yarra, Yarra River, art, sculpture, fish
This display seems to have gone up overnight, at the Melbourne Visitor Centre at Fed Square.
What is a hero? Are you a hero?
Last night at church we had alook at a story in which Jesus heals a guy with a skin disease:
A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, 'If you are willing, you can make me clean.'Every time I've read this passage recently I've wondered whether Jesus was joking when he told the guy not to tell anyone.
Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. 'I am willing,' he said. 'Be clean!' Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured.
Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: 'See that you don't tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.' Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.
(Mark 1:40-45)
Been listening to The Living End's new album. I actually listened to it a bit in a shop a couple of days after it was released, and hated it. From the title, it sounded like a sequel to Modern Artillery, so I expected it to have the same complexity and political focus, which I don't think it does. Apparently a lot of their other fans didn't like Modern Artillery, because it wasn't punk enough or rock enough or something.
But I like it now that I've gotten over my expectations. According to James, everyone at Undercover reckons it's their best album so far, but I don't (yet). Living End, The Living End, music, Australian music, punk, rock, rockabilly
Went to the Treasury Gardens today to eat my lunch and read the scriptures for a bit. Some people had set up easles so people could paint the park. So after I'd finished eating I painted this:
I just painted lots of things that I could see all over the top of each other.
They're at the Treasury Gardens between 11am and 3pm every day until Friday. painting, Melbourne, gardens, art, park
Just gotten back from Urban Seed: church. Tomsy was curating tonight, and the theme was breath - God breathing into humankind to make them live (Genesis 2:7), Job talking about God's breath/spirit* in his nostrils (Job 27:3).
One visitor reckoned it was more important to learn about God's word (meaning the scriptures in this case) than God's breath, and that God would use words to communicate rather than anything else, so it was good that we could all discuss that. I remembered a church I visited a couple of weekends ago where I didn't really agree with a lot that was going on, but at that church I couldn't tlak about why that bothered me.
During the gathering we has a video loop going that Tomsy made when he was at uni, of his breath forming clouds (Canberra's pretty cold, like Ballarat). Took this photo afterwards, with Ewan standing in front of the projector:
*The same Hebrew word is used in the scriptures to talk about 'breath' and 'spirit'. I wonder whether if Job was a pentecostal preacher he'd yell, 'Invite Jesus Christ into your nostrils today!'.
In Credo Gathering on Tuesday we had a look at the story of Jesus healing Simon-Peter's mother-in-law, and I've just been having another look at it:
Now as soon as they had come out of the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. But Simon’s wife’s mother lay sick with a fever, and they told Him about her at once. So He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and immediately the fever left her. And she served them.Sounds a bit like the lads have had a big day casting out demons, they're getting a bit hungry and tired, so they turn up at Peter's mother-in-law's, hoping for a feed. But it turns out Peter's mother-in-law is sick in bed. I think if I didn't already know the story I'd expect the lads to be looking after her and asking if there was anything she needed, but instead Jesus heals her, and she gets up to serve them.
(Mark 1:29-31)
This is where we'll be having Urban Seed: church, at least for the start of the year. Mark and I moved most of the stuff down from upstairs at Missions to Seafarers, and across into the Dome this morning, and started setting up for Sunday night. Apparently it was originally built as a gymnasium. Unless you're standing against the edge of the room your voice and footsteps echo for about three seconds.
The room upstairs that we were using last year was booked for Commonwealth Games security briefings. Apparently it's not going to be needed now, but we've moved into the Dome anyway, to see what it's like.
The Homeless Person's Legal Clinic at PILCH has put out a special newsletter (Word document) about people's rights when dealing with police, security guards and ticket inspectors during the Melbourne Commonwealth Games.
(Before the Olympics in Atlanta, and later Sydney, there were big capaigns to 'clean up' by getting rid of the street people, and something similar appears to be going on here in Melbourne.) Melbourne, Commonwealth Games, homeless, homelessness, police, arrest, law, rights
Today I played cricket with a real cricket ball for the first time, with the Credo team. Charlesy taught me to bowl five minutes before we started fielding. We lost against Sacred Heart (St Kilda) in the morning and beat Geelong in the afternoon.
I keep getting targeted by street evangelists, trying to get me to convert to their brand of Christianism: Bible-believeing, spirit-filled, faith-healing or New Testament Christianity - the list goes on. The guy this evening was trying to tell me that people aren't saved unless they speak in tongues.
Ahhh, Melbourne!
He [Jesus] also said, 'This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.'Reading this just before at Sacred Space, I wondered about whether it mattered for Jesus whether the people understood what his parables meant, and why he only explained them to his disciples. Is it necessary for us to understand what they mean?
Again he said, 'What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade.'
With many similar parables Jesus spoke the word to them, as much as they could understand. He did not say anything to them without using a parable. But when he was alone with his own disciples, he explained everything.
(Mark 4:24-36)
When I moved in the weekend before last, the first few nights it was really difficult to get much sleep.To much background noise, particularly the fan just outside my window. And I'd get woken by the street cleaners at far too early o'clock in the morning.
After a couple of nights I got some earplugs, then I slept fine.
The last few nights I've been able to sleep fine without the earplugs, because I've gotten used to the noise.
But tonight I was planning to go to sleep early due to tiredness, due to it having been so hot today. But there's been so many people in town, making heaps of noise, because tomorrow's Australia(n Invasion) Day, so they won't have to go to work. So I haven't been able to sleep.
So I ended up going down to the Flinders Street steps to see if anyone I knew was around. There was one guy I know from Credo, sitting on the steps with two other guys I didn't recognise, so I hung around with them for a while.
So these two policemen came up to us and asked the younger one of the guys that I hadn't met before if he had any ID, because there was a Smirnoff bottle sitting next to him, and they didn't believe that he was eighteen. He gave him a Health Care Card, and they asked him what his name was, and his date of birth. He told them his name, but said he didn't know what his date of birth was. Because he wouldn't tell them his birthdate they said they'd have to arrest him for sitting on the steps (apparently against the Transport Act), although the two other guys were also sitting on the steps, and there were about a dozen other people sitting on the steps. He still wouldn't tell them, so they arrested him.
He came back about ten minutes later and told us that he'd given them his brother's Health Care Card because he was sacred of them, and thought he'd have to go to court for underage drinking. The cops came back again and the older guy that I didn't know told them the kid had given them his brother's card because he was scared. So the cops got the kid to come back into the station. They said he probably would be let off though.
I realise they probably just want to scare kids out of breaking the law, but if they hadn't tried to intimidate him he probably would've been more likely to tell the truth, although it probably still wouldn't have been likely. I don't know if what they did would just make him resent police officers and be less likely to trust them.
Last Tuesday morning, after we looked at the passage in Leviticus, we looked at the fifteenth chapter of Deuteronomy, which was Moses' last speech before he died. It covers a lot of similar stuff to the Levicticus passage.
Some other stuff I noticed in this passage though, is that Moses doesn't tell the Israelites not to make money by lending to other countries. I suppose that might've been so that other countries who wouldn't be generous in return wouldn't be able to abuse the Israelite economic system. Dunno what I think about it though.
Another thing I noticed is that their slavery system seems a lot different to how Africans were enslaved to work in North America, or how Pacific Islanders were enslaved to work in Australia. Slaves had to be freed in the Jubilee year, and they had to be paid for the time they'd spent working for their masters. (12-18)
This baby sparrow was sitting in one of the flower boxes out the front of Town Hall this evening, when me and Nomes stopped to ... admire ... the parsley that's there at the moment.
Tuesday afternoon we had a discussion about the laneway, and whose space it is. A lot of people use the laneway. The staff of Collins Street Baptist church park there. This morning most of the church people came in through the laneway. Last weekend we (the Urban Seed residents) moved all our stuff in via the laneway. Three days a week we'll be cleaning it up. Heroin users go to the steps at the back of the Victoria Hotel, just next to our garage, to inject. Foot Patrol come into the laneway every morning to empty the fit bin. People come into Credo lunches via the laneway. Green Collect (particularly EcoPaul) use the laneway a lot, because they keep their compost and recycling bins in the garage. Staff from the Vic's restaurant come out into the laneway for smoke breaks. As of last week a team from Sydney have set up scaffolding, so they can spend the next six months repairing the Vic's 'concrete cancer'. And during the Commonwealth Games there'll be a lot of police and security services around, because the Vic will be part of the International Village.
So the laneway is very much a shared space, between a lot of different groups.
We had a look at the final chapter of the letter to the Hebrews.
The author encourages the Jewish Christians to offer hospitality to strangers (1-3). The laneway is a place where we have an opportunity to do this, by keeping it clean and well lit, in order to minimise the harm of injecting drugs. It's also a half-way point between the street and the building, a kind of neutral ground where we can meet people from the street culture, and gain each others trust enough to venture into each others' spaces, such as our living room or the Flinders Street steps, where a lot of street people congregate.
The author also talks about how he (or she) doesn't consider him(or her)self to be part of the city, but is in fact looking forward to the new city that God is reconstructing (14). The laneway has the potential to be a gateway to God's city. I was talking today to someone who comes to Credo a lot, and he said, 'The thing I like about Credo is that the worst of enemies can come and eat together, and have a civilised conversation.' Sounded like God's city, and reminded me of what Isaiah prophecies about God's kingdom:
The cattle will graze among bears. Cubs and calves will lie down together. And lions will eat grass as the livestock do.
(Isaiah 11:6)
Tuesday morning we talked a fair bit about advocacy and social justice and stuff, and looked a bit at what the scriptures say about these things.
First we looked at chapter 25 of Leviticus, which was the ancient Israelites' law book. Here's some interesting stuff we noticed:
THE tragic case of Nguyen Tuong Van has generated much debate about the appropriateness of capital punishment for heroin traffickers. His execution in Singapore late last year was felt by many to be appropriate because, as one columnist put it: "Heroin makes people do bad things to themselves and to others. We must ensure people don't use it."Read the whole article here.
But is it really the restriction of supply, through prohibition, that prevents the disintegration of society as we know it?
Okay, so now we've all moved into Urban Seed. The last few days we've been doing training on stuff like adovocacy, referring people to various welfare organisations, responding to an overdose, cleaning up the laneway. This afternoon we also had a discussion about the theology behind cleaning up the laneway. Last night I saw and held a baby who had been born that day, in the same hospital I was born twenty-two years and twelve days previous. Tomorrow we (the residents) are going down to Queenscliff for a couple of days of camping. I'll blog more about what we've been learning when we get back. For now, here's some pictures of my room:
Picture from 'What makes Jesus Christ so unique?'
Been reading the story where Jesus heals a paralysed man (Mark 2:1-12).
A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on.A couple of things surprise me about this story.
(Mark 2:1-4)
Got back from Warrnambool yesterday afternoon.
When I got there on Monday, the Ignite team were down at the beach running games of cricket and volleyball and rugby. Here's some photos from the rugby:
(They look really weird, because my phone's not meant for taking photos of people running around.)
Went and visited the Champion City (what used to be called SUFM) team after that. They have a new tradition that if someone says a particular word, they have to do ten push-ups. Rachel kept trying to trick me into saying it, so eventually I just thought that whenever she talked to me she was trying to get me to say the word.
This guy called Elliot, who was in the Universe group I was leading at the start of last year, and who has flouro yellow hair, has started another new tradition, of getting up at 6am for an extra prayer meeting.
Thursday afternoon Ignite ran a three-on-three basketball tournament at Jamieson Street Primary School. They got some guys from the Warrnambool Seahawks to come and ref. Here's some photos:
(These ones are funnier, because some of the players look all stretchy.)
I'm going to Warrnambool tomorrow morning to visit the Scripture Union team there. Trav's been blogging about what's been going on there. I'll be back Wednesday. On Saturday I move to Urban Seed.
6th Century Italian mosaic
Epiphany is on Friday, so I’ve been reading over the story of the magi coming to visit Jesus (Matthew 2:1-12).
According to The People's New Testament, magi were 'an order of priests and philosophers which belonged originally to Persia and Media, and who were extensively distributed over the region of the Euphrates. Those described in the book of Daniel as wise men, astrologers and magicians, belonged to this order.'
I find it interesting that these foreigners, who likely practise magic and astrology, appear to be the only people in Jerusalem who realise that Messiah has been born. Even when King Herod asks the religious leaders about the expected conditions of Messiah’s arrival it doesn’t seem to occur to them that Messiah may have just been born.
Went and saw Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong this afternoon (Tuesday).
My friend James, who I went to see it with reckoned it was to long, and that it took too long for them to the island and for Kong to come into the story. I didn't mind that though.
During one a scenes depicting a violent encounter between Carl Denham (Jack Black)'s film crew and the indigenous people of the island, I wondered how the story would differ if it was told from the point of view of the indigenouse people, who know they must sacrifice someone (preferabley not from their tribe) to appease Kong, but are also afraid of the strangers' guns.
At one point in the film several characters are attacked by what seem to be giant wetas - primative crickets from New Zealand, which Peter Jackson's special effects company is named after.
Just uploaded a heap of photos that I've taken on my phone over the last month:
photos, photography
Thursday night was reading the first chapter of Mark's gospel, where Jesus first starts getting famous.
Just then a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an evil spirit cried out, 'What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!'One thing that surprised me about this ^ bit in particular was that someone with a demon in them (whether that means he was literally possessed by a bad spirit or if it was some kind of biological illness) was actually allowed into the synagogue, and whether everyone knew he had a demon in him. And I suppose it was lucky he was allowed in, because otherwise he wouldn't have been healed.
'Be quiet!' said Jesus sternly. 'Come out of him!' The evil spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek.
(Mark 1:23-26)
Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they exclaimed: 'Everyone is looking for you!'
Jesus replied, 'Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.' So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.
Kitty sent me this on Wednesday morning:
C mon Melbourne lets spread the message that Aussies of middle eastern appearance ARE welcome here!I forwarded it on, then realised half the people I sent it to were actually in the Western district, or interstate. By the time I had gotten to work one of the people had already sent it on to one of my workmates whose number I didn't have myself.
forward.
John Howard said yesterday 'I do not accept that there is underlying racism in this country.'. Lucky he said that, otherwise I would've had the wool pulled over my eyes, good and proper.
In case you're in a different country and haven't heard about it, the weekend before last some Australians, who looked Middle-Eastern, bashed some lifeguards at Cronulla beach, in Sydney.
During the week text messages were sent between Australians of Caucasian ancestry, telling each other to take revenge against 'Lebs and Wogs'.
At least 5000 Caucasians turned up at the beach on Sunday. Various white-supremacist organisations were present, including the Patriotic Youth League. Many had t-shirts saying things like 'Wog Free Zone' and 'Ethnic Cleansing Unit'.
They assaulted several people who looked Middle-Eastern or Southern-European. They also attacked police and ambulance officers who were trying to get Australians of Middle-Eastern and Southern-European appearance out of the area safely.
Luke Connors from the Patriotic Youth League said, 'I have had people calling me all through yesterday, and today, and all through the night, just asking me when Melbourne is going to erupt in riots because they want to go and join in.'
And all this time they've been trying to get us worried about terrorists of Middle-Eastern origin.
But I'm glad the PM has cleared everything up. I was worried for a moment.
Yesterday was the third Make Poverty History day for the year, which was to influence the World Trade Organisation while they meet in Hong Kong this week. At the Arboretum (Boronia's version of Lake Wendouree) we had a concert and a fair trade market. People could buy shoes, soccer balls, coffee, tea and jewellery that was made by people in developing countries who were actually paid a decent wage. For a while I looked after the Tear stall, where people could buy stuff like text books, goats and clean water for people overseas. (Their gift catalogue is here.)
Towards the end of the concert, John Smith talked a bit about Santa Claus, and how the original Santa Claus wasn't much like the jolly fat man we have these days. Saint Nicholas was actually a rather affluent man who gave up his wealth to help aleviate poverty.
He also talked about how it's pretty easy to give to a charity at Christmas to make us feel good about ourselves, after a year of self indulgence. It's a lot more challenging to change the way we live, particularly the way we use our wealth, from day to day.
About a week ago now I had an American telemarketer call me up and ask if I was interested in a free holiday. I said I wasn't. She sounded like she couldn't believe it: 'You don't want a free holiday?!'
I said, 'Not interested! Not interested! Not interested!'
She asked how old I was.
I said, 'NOT INTERESTED, TWENTY-ONE, GOODBYE!'
Next time I think I will say something rather ridiculous.
Sunday night, on the train back to Ferntree Gully there was this guy I have seen before, who has a Public Enemy tatoo on the back of his shaved head and caribiners through his ear lobes. Seen him dancing and doing handstands on the train before.
Anyway, this time he got in between two of the carriages and climbed up on top of the train. When we came into the next station the train cops chased him.
I would just like to say that I met the frontman from Wolfmother earlier in the year, before anyone had heard of them. Can't remember his name though.
I guess it depends how you measure success,Just heard this song, by The Winnie Coopers, on Triple J. (Heard it before, but didn't catch who it was.) Full lyrics are here, and if you sign up for their newsletter here you can download it for free.
I can still breathe I am still blessed,
I guess it depends how measure success,
‘cause all these possessions just don’t impress
