Lowenna's baptistm

Went to Lowenna's baptism this afternoon, at the Dancing Dog in Footscray. It was really crowded again, but this time there were heaps of little kids, and it was really nice having them really involved in the gathering.
I took this photo afterwards, of Marcus and Rachel with Lowenna, Perran and Ewan; and Chris and Katherine (Lowenna's god-parents) with Xavier:

A few years ago I wouldn't have been very into kids getting baptised, because of the idea that kids should decide for themselves if they want to get baptised. I think I'm more okay with it now because I see faith as a bit more of a collective thing, rather than an entirely individual thing.
(Feel free to share your thoughts on infant baptism in the comments, if you like.)

Ducks

Just gotten back from Ben's house and duck warming.

50 TVs

Apparently we have 50 TVs arriving this morning, from one of our neighbours. We'd been offered 100, and I'd said I'd take ten, and Mark had said he'd take eight. We should be able to get rid of the rest. I think I should be able to build a free standing wall out of TVs now.

'Dead Man Rising' in Bendigo

Here's some pics Dave Fagg took at the Bendigo version of 'Dead Man Rising', which I missed:

Keeping the peace

Early this morning there was a pretty full-on incident in the laneway, where two people were fighting and we had to call the police because there wasn't a lot we could do. When the police arrived we weren't too happy with how the police responded either. We hadn't had much interaction with the police for a while, so we've decided to go back over this little booklet from Victoria Legal Aid, which is about what rights people have when dealing with police in Victoria:

When we were debriefing the incident today, Ray mentioned that last year Ali used to go and meditate in the laneway after bad stuff happened there. So I went and lit a candle in the spot where the fight happened, and prayed there for a while.

Beetroot Bolognaise

This morning we cooked Beetroot Bolognaise for lunch.

614

I've just been over at 614 (The Salvos) to see what's going on there at the moment. We've been visiting some of the different welfare oragnisations so that we know a bit about what they're up to, and can tell people who come to Credo about what's going on at different places and stuff.
Hung out with this elderly guy who I've been getting to know at Credo recently, and he gave me a Greek Easter egg, which is a boiled egg that's been coloured with food dye. He said that at the Greek Orthodox church they eat it on Easter Sunday, when Christ has risen. I'm not sure if it'd be still good to eat though, if it was cooked at Easter. I dunno, maybe the shell would keep it okay?

Also talked a bit to a guy who was there for the Alcoholics Anonymous group that meets there after lunch.

This afternoon we're making stock to use in Credo.

Mark fixed The Old Red Couch.
Also, I'm not throwing up anymore, but still feeling sick a lot of the time, even though I'm actually pretty hungry. Luke's had pretty much the same symptoms since Sunday as well.

'Questions for penal substitution'

Simon's done a post about some stuff that I've also been wondering about for a lot of my life as a Christian, but particularly over the last year. Read it here.
(In case you're wondering, penal substitution is the idea that God wouldn't or couldn't forgive human beings of their sin unless Jesus died.)

I don't like Mondays

'Dead Man Rising' is currently on in Bendigo, but I'm actually back in Melbourne. I've been throwing up for most of the day, haven't even been able to keep water down, so this afternoon I caught the train back home. Trav says that Bendigo tends to have that effect on people.
I'm feeling a fair bit better now, and had some juice, and that doesn't seem to have made me worse, but I don't know if I want to risk eating anything.
And it looks like I can have a day off tomorrow.

'Dead Man Rising' in Footscray

Spent yesterday afternoon setting up 'Dead Man Rising' at the Dancing Dog with Marcus, Talitha, Minh and Long.

We were up till about one o'clock this morning working out how to explain all the different stations and stuff, and printing and folding and cutting the little station take-away explanations and stuff.
We were back at the Dancing Dog at about 7:30 this morning to finish everything off. I reckon at least 60 people showed up to interact with the installation. John Jensen had already blogged a reponse before we started packing up. Read it here. I can't really be bothered writing about it right now, having hardly had any sleep the last four nights. I just wanted to put some pictures up:

At about 10:30 we started packing everything back into the Urban Seed van, to take it up to Bendigo (where we are now).

We'll be doing the same thing at St Matt's in Long Gully at 7:30 tomorrow night.

Evicted for Easter

Was out at Marcus' place last night doing more work for 'Dead Man Rising', and tomorrow we'll be setting up at The Dancing Dog.

A guy we know from Credo got evicted for Easter - just when all the accomodation services places are about to be closed for four days, so he was there with us too, and we were trying to work out where he can stay over the long weekend.

'Looking for Jesus: refugees in faith'

Barney Zwartz from The Age came in to Credo on Tuesday for Gathering. He was putting together a story about people who are attmepting to follow Christ, but aren't part of 'institutional' churches. I don't personally reckon it's that good an article, but oh well, here it is. I just find it weird reading in the paper about people I'm really familiar with, except that it doesn't sound much like how I know them.

RIP Old Red Couch

On the weekend, the legs on Credo's Old Red Couch finally gave in and collapsed.

Danny, one of the guys who comes to lunch, who I also work with at Green Collect, has a couch that he's trying to get trid of, so we're going to use that one instead.

Been doing more work on 'Dead Man Rising'.

Nuclear Fools Day

Yesterday afternoon, me and Talitha took part in the Nuclear Fools Day (Palm Sunday) march.

Palm Sunday is the day that Jesus rode victoriously into Jerusalem on a donkey, sending up the idea that he was going to lead a violent revolution against the Romans.

Because of this, Palm Sunday’s traditionally been a day where people have come together to call for an end to war, and nuclear weapons in particular. This year Palm Sunday was the same day as April Fools Day, so it was called Nuclear Fools Day, and there was a big focus on nuclear weapons, nuclear power and uranium mining.

One thing that always annoys me about these kinds of events is that there's so many people trying to get everyone to buy their magazines, or to take fliers about their guest speaker or their film night. And there was some stuff that I found pretty negative and silly (eg. 'Howard Hater' and 'Make Bono History' t-shirts), but overall there seemed to be a pretty positive vibe.

Rock the Casbah

I had The Clash playing pretty loudly yesterday afternoon, and there were some people injecting in the laneway, and one of them started singing, 'Rock the Casbah! Rock the Casbah!'

This weekend we've got Jackson staying with us. Last night he made us another lizard out of playdough...

...and he cooked us something that he calls soggy salt...

...and he sprayed heaps of Pine-O-Clean on everything.