Due to the stupid amount of spam this blog is generating I have installed a plug-in that close comments on posts more than 14 days old.
I figure most conversations are dead by then anyway – so if you happen to go to an old post and try to comment then you’ll understand now why its turned off
I watched this movie last night and found it quite compelling.
It is the story of a Bengali family living in London and the struggles they face with issues such as arranged marriages and assimilating into a new culture especially as Muslims during the 9/11 period.
The characters are well developed and believable and the story has sufficient energy to keep you watching. The ending is not predictable and leaves you satisfied.
You can’t help but feel for the plight of people cast adrift in a foreign culture whose lives have already been torn apart by tragedy.
A great movie from the ‘alternative’ shelf at the DVD store and well worth the time to watch it
There are people after Jesus.
They have seen the signs.
Quick, let’s hide Him.
Let’s think; carpenter,
fishermen’s friend,
disturber of religious comfort.
Let’s award Him a degree in theology,
a purple cassock
and a position of respect.
They’ll never think of looking here.
Let’s think;
His dialect may betray Him,
His tongue is of the masses.
Let’s teach Him Latin
and seventeenth century English,
they’ll never think of listening in.
Let’s think;
humble,
Man of Sorrows,
nowhere to lay His head.
We’ll build a house for Him,
somewhere away from the poor.
We’ll fill it with brass and silence.
It’s sure to throw them off.
There are people after Jesus.
Quick, let’s hide Him.
—————-
Ouch…
The Joondalup Anaconda store has a climbing wall and Ellie and me went there today. We hadn’t had a ‘daddy & Ellie’ day for a little while so it was nice to do it again.
Here’s a pic of Ell – who loves to climb – making it to the top.
“He who would seek revenge should dig a grave for two.” Jewish proverb
This week I wrote a letter to the editor of the West Australian newspaper disagreeing with the opinions of another Christian.
His letter basically stated that the death penalty was the only appropriate punishment for the Bali bombers and that this would be ‘God’s justice’ meted out to them. He quoted the OT and was pretty vitriolic in his comments towards a previous letter writer who had suggested death was not the only option.
I was reading the paper while sipping a long mach in Cranked Cafe and couldn’t help but respond. It was a ‘gut’ response rather than a much thought thru and deliberated upon letter.
My letter reads:
The same book Don Jackson cites to advocate the death penalty for Bali bombers also says ‘do not return evil with evil but overcome evil with good’. Which one is it? Which one will build a better world? Justice must be done – no question – but you have limited it to one response and called it ‘God’s justice’ when it actually sounds a lot more like ‘Don’s justice’.
I find the question of what to do with the Bali bombers a hugely vexed one with no easy solutions. I think the death penalty is
a neat and tidy, ‘easy’ solution. It removes them from the planet and they can kill no more…
However this action gives birth to many consequences. To kill these men is simply to return evil for evil – which in turn will get responded to by more evil and so on. Someone has to break the cycle. It may also serve to make them martyrs and heros – probably not the desire result either. But it won’t act to dissuade people from killing. And even if it did I would question whether it is an appropriate response.
In talking with Mike & Rachel the other night (when I dropped in for dinner and had an amazing prawn salad) Mike mentioned that all of our attempts at justice are only approximations. We are not God and can never get things perfectly right. While in this case there may be a clear situation of wrongdoing we are still approximating a response.
To be quite honest there is a part of me that thinks they should die and even more, they deserve to die, yet I find it hard to hold that position biblically. I don’t expect a secular world to hold any regard for the biblical story, and I recognise that we as Christians will even disagree on best responses at times.
The reason for my letter was not because I am an ardent ‘anti-capital punishment’ supporter (although I would definitely err on that side of things) but it was because sharp, black and white often simplistic responses based on Old Testament passages of scripture leave me cold and infuriated.
Life is rarely as simple as I hear it made out to be.download red letters free
Yesterday there was palpable glee in the Hamilton home as Danelle discovered that one of the City of Wanneroo’s free concerts this year was a Leo Sayer event held right here in Brighton.
I have known of this character flaw for some time now, but have chosen to ignore it.
There are many things I love about my wife… Her Leo Sayer adoration is not one.
May God have mercy on her.
I am about half way thru Larry Crabb’s book Becoming a True Spiritual Community
and finding it interesting but also a little puzzling.
It seems Crabb has almost done an about face on the value of counselling and other similar practices and now advocates ‘spiritual friendship’ and ‘spiritual direction’ in their place. If I read him right he seems to be saying that all issues require a spiritual/divine/supernatural solution rather than using the more theraputic methodology.
There are some appealing things about what Crabb is saying, but by the same token he seems to have created a ‘spiritual’ approach and an ‘unspiritual’ approach to spiritual growth and resolution of issues. I keep feeling he is pushing the ‘spiritual’ too hard, as if he is compensating for a previous stance.
Did anyone else read it and feel similarly?divx dead poets society
last of the mohicans the movie free butch cassidy and the sundance kid movie download
Yeeha! Sam has finally developed enough hand eye co-ordination to hit a tennis ball…
That is great news because up until now we spent most of our time chasing the ball behind the stumps and games of cricket got rather tedious.
He was having a blast yesterday morning so hopefully it will be the first of many backyard cricket matches.
When I turned 21 my birthday present from my parents was a top quality leather spalding basketball – the best one you could buy at the time.
I treated that ball like a baby and only ever used it on wooden floors and with the utmost care. Since moving from Lesmurdie, where I retired from veterans basketball, it has sat on a shelf in our shed for 7 years – a monument to a game I used to play. It is still in superb condition and is a classic piece of equipment.
Lately Ellie has been asking me if she can use it to play with. I told her ‘no – to bounce it on bricks or the road will damage it’. Quite true.
Today she asked the same question and yet again I said ‘no’.
Then she said ‘what do you keep it for if you never intend to use it dad?’
Now that’s a fair question hey?… I had a lights on moment that a nicely kept leather ball that is never used is probably not a lot of value to anyone…
I went to the shelf and pulled it out, pumped it up and gave it to her to play on the street with the rest of the kids. Tonight my basketball is scuffed and has lost its shiny finish that I was so diligent to protect.
But then I am not likely to play for the Wildcats at this stage in my life so my need for a quality ball has diminished somewhat…
Funny how it takes us a while to realise these things…
As you were.
