Tuesday, February 26, 2008

What's wrong with meat and cheese together?

Had a bit of class today, it's called Power Wealth and Purity in the New Testament-so looks facinating. To get us started we looked at a few laws from the Torah, that we as Christians don't follow anymore, but Jews do.

The one that has intrigued me is Exodus 34:26

And from that Kosher Law dictates that meat and milk products can not be eaten together, which seems like tad of a stretch to me, but that's another story.

The way I tend to look at a lot of the OT Laws is that they were instructions for clean good living in the conditions they were in, hence the rulings about mildew, about people needing to go outside the camp to clean themselves after certain bodily functions etc. Even circumcision makes medical sense in such a dry sandy climate.

But I'm struggling to see why meat and cheese is no good? Will ask my newfound Jewish friend on Friday, but just wondered if anybody else could possibly think why that might be a law?

Refugee Realities

I just found out about this cool little thing happening on in the city for the next two weeks or so.

It's a bit of a 'see a little bit of what life is like for refugees' thing in the city, which looks interesting.

I would love to take some kids from school through, but our City Week isn't till a bit later.

Good stuff though.

God is like Tom from Myspace

A mate of mine the other night was telling me a sermon analogy that a mate of his had used for a youth talk at their youth group a while back.

Basically it was that God is like Tom from Myspace. For those that aren't up to speed with myspace, basically when you create an account, and so start your Myspace life, Tom is automatically your No 1 friend. You have the choice to move him down your list of friends or remove him all together. But no matter what, Tom is your friend from the start. And then I'll leave it to you to fill in the gaps from there...

It's a bit cheesy, but could actually work with young people I reckon. Props to them for creative thinking.

Friday, February 22, 2008

A Letter from Corey Delaney

Hi, this is Corey.

Despite what you may have recently read, seen, or heard in the media I am not throwing another house party. I have devoted considerable thought to the matter and I have come to the decision that my time and energy would be better spent finding a cure for redheadedness.

As many of you who are redheads or who live with redheads know, having red hair is a physically and socially debilitating disease. As a redhead I not only have to live with the fact that I'm pysically freakish but also with the fact that people treat me differently because of my deformity. Unlike the deaf, the blind, and the mentally retarded, people are acutely aware of my disability from the moment they see me - even though I am a complete tool, it disheartens me that people assume this to be the case even before I open my mouth.

As a result of my own personal experience and my first hand knowledge of other sufferers I have decided to set up the Corey Delaney Foundation for Ranga Research - a not-for-profit organisation charged with finding and destroying the gene for red hair. I intend to establish this Foundation using money raised from the sale of my 'famous' yellow sunglasses on eBay.

For those of you who are equally passionate about eliminating redheadedness I ask that you take this moment to consider whether you too want to make a difference in this world. If the answer is yes, please follow the link below and give generously; if the answer is no, please take pause to ponder this: red hair is a recessive gene.


For more info on redheads please check out http://www.gingerkids.org/

Nature vs Nurture

Was having dinner with a mate and his parents last night, and somehow we got onto the topic of nature vs nurture in regards to determining how we as people turn out. It's always fascinated me, particularly the way things that happened to us when we were too young too remember them affect us today.

The statistics about the amount you were held and hugged as a baby being having a direct correlation to your likelihood of gong to jail have always interested me.

Then of course, we got onto the debate about homosexuality and if it's something we're born with, a decision, something that is affected by stuff we can't remember when we were young, or a combination of 2 or all 3 of those factors. Interesting stuff, but probably a debate that will always go unsolved.

Friday, February 15, 2008

Sorry Day

Anybody in Australia will know what I mean by this, and if you're not, then in a nutshell, Australia has finally gottena round to apologising to our Aboriginal people who we took from their families between 40-80 years ago.

I have been reading as much as I can about this, as the whole Aboriginal situation is one I know barely enough about, and would really like to know more and be more informed.

First off, I want to say that I fully support the Government's apology. They and we didn't actually do anything wrong ourselves, but we stand in the line of those who did, and so I believe it's appropriate to offer an apology.

I have been thinking a lot about the meaning of the word 'sorry'. I think some have used it in the sense 'I'm sorry (I'm in a way responsible) for what our forebears did to you' and others 'I'm sorry that that happened'-in the same vein you might say that you are sorry to hear of a friend's mum dying. You didn't cause her death, but you are sorry it happened.

I think both meanings are appropriate.

The response to BRendan Nelson's speech has interested me, particularly on the day. I would like to know from those who turned their backs if it was to him and what he was saying, or the Liberal party and what they have said in the past.

I actually really agreed with, and felt it an important point, what he was saying about the people who did it having good intentions. There's no doubt it was wrong, but I believe it's important to acknowledge they meant well.

I did think him going on about the Intervention last year was the wrong time and place though.

The other thing I've been thinking about a lot is all the talk that 'we' need to do something to fix the problems in their community. First off, I hate viewing the world in such a 'us and them' way, but it does make me reflect on my experiences in Africa. So much of what we do in trying to 'fix' Africa just makes things worse, cos we have this mentality that we are somehow so much better than them, and our solutions will solve their problems.

It just doesn't work like that. I don't think we should stand back and let the massive social issues we see in those communities go on, but nor do I think that it is our responsibility to 'fix' those issues. It's a very complicated issue.

No surprises either to see today a man lodging a claim for compensation. Still not sure what I think about the financial compensation side of things. Interesting times for Australia.

Friday, February 08, 2008

On being optimistic

As most of you who know me will know, I'm a pretty optimistic person in most areas of my life. It takes something fairly massive to make me really unhappy, and I can't even remember the last time that happened.

Obviously this also translates across to my faith, which is often a pretty good thing. I was chatting to a couple of different mates this week about how they're going through different tough times for different reasons. I was talking about how due to my optimistic outlook on life, when I'm going through similar tough times I tend to not let it stress me out, which is generally pretty cool.

So if things are not completely on track with me and the Big Fella (as is kinda the case now), I don't stress about it too much, cos I know that things will improve. I've been through tricky patches at times, and know I always come through the other side.

But maybe I don't take them seriously enough? Maybe because I know things will improve eventually I just get lazy and wait for that to happen, instead of putting in the hard yards.

How personailty types affect our spiritual life has often intrigued me, and so this is just another thing to think about.

Monday, February 04, 2008

Coolest website ever!

OK, so maybe that is a slight exxageration, but it is pretty sweet.

I bought the book version of this site like a sucker, then carried it all the way home from london, so to save yourself flying all the way over there you can just read this site!

It basically tells you how to do all manner of things, from fire-twirling, how to cook anything, make a website, break up with somebody, play a sport or anything-it's fascinating!

As the cover of the book says 'How to do a whole lot of things you never knew you needed to know how to do!'

Safeway/Woolies Drought Day

