It's such fun, these days to play with Anand. He is now into imaginative play, and the scenarios keep evolving and changing.

He does not require much to keep him occupied. His favourite toy is a thick piece of thermocol that we picked up in the corridors of the hospital. This has been, on different occasions, a ship, a spaceship, a horse, a field, a car park, and a board to drive nails into.

We also picked up a box full of packing materials lying outside Virology department, which looked similar to corn starch building blocks we had seen before. They turned out to be the same thing! We have been able to make rockets, and planes, and boats from this. Such fun!




He is also an avid "reader" and will sit quietly for hours if he can find somebody who will patiently read to him from a book. All that he reads is stored away for future use, and comes out at the most unexpected moments.


"Look, I'm a moose!"



"Come into my house and have tea!", and so we had to squeeze our heads into this box to have tea with him



Anand reading Appacha's Light of Life magazine. Do tell us if you need subtitles!



"Give me Oil in my Lamp"

Today's Links 14/5/2010

1. "…whatever you do, find the God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated passion of your life, and find your way to say it and live for it and die for it. And you will make a difference that lasts. You will not waste your life." John Piper.

(HT: Buzzard Blog)







2. "I think again of the lovely prayer of Phillips Brooks, given me by Grandpa years ago, ‘Lord, by all Thy dealings with us, whether of joy or pain (and this is both), of light or darkness, let us be brought to Thee.’”

Elisabeth Elliot, in a letter to her parents, shortly after her husband Jim was murdered, with four other missionaries, in 1956.

(HT: Ray Ortlund)




3. The reports of a baby who was aborted for a disability, and then survived for two days, can be found here and here.

One of the reports contains this nugget of information: "In 2005 a baby boy in Manchester was born alive at 24 weeks after surviving three attempts to abort him. He is now a five-year-old schoolboy."

Also,
"Italian police are investigating the case for "homicide" because infanticide is illegal in Italy.

The law means that doctors have had an obligation to try to preserve the life of the child once he had survived the abortion."

So, try and kill the baby one minute, and try and save him the next minute!

And the baby's deformity for which he was aborted.....

Cleft lip and palate!

(HT: Vit Z)




4. The "One Anothers" of the New Testament.

How impossible it is to be a Christian all alone by oneself!

(HT: Vit Z)




5. Silent Sigh! I see parents like this everyday!

(HT: Six Year Med)




6. The story of Ray Towler, who walked free after spending 29 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.

I was impressed by the attitude of this man.




7. John Shore, "A Rabid Anti-Christian" tells the story of his Very Sudden Conversion.

(HT: Thabiti)




8. Some amazing pictures of the Iceland Volcano.





(HT: Vit Z)

The Parable of the Sandwich Sign

by Max Lucado

I am the voice of the one calling out in the desert: "Make the road straight for the Lord."
John 1:23

The faces of the three men were solemn as the mayor informed them of the catastrophe. "The rains have washed away the bridge. During the night many cars drove over the edge and into the river."

"What can we do?" asked one.

"You must stand on the side of the road and warn the drivers not to make the left turn. Tell them to take the one-lane road that follows the side of the river."

"But they drive so fast! How can we warn them?"

"By wearing these sandwich signs," the mayor explained, producing three wooden double-signs, hinged together to hang from one's shoulders. "Stand at the crossroads so drivers can see these signs until I can get someone out there to fix the bridge."

And so the men hurried out to the dangerous curve and put the signs over their shoulders.

"The drivers should see me first," spoke one. The others agreed. His sign warned, "Bridge Out!" He walked several hundred yards before the turn and took his post.

"Perhaps I should be second, so the drivers will slow down," spoke the one whose sign declared, "Reduce Speed."

"Good idea," agreed the third. "I'll stand here at the curve so people will get off the wide road and onto the narrow." His sign read simply "Take Right Road" and had a finger pointing toward the safe route.

And so the three men stood with their three signs ready to warn the travelers of the washed-out bridge. As the cars approached, the first man would stand up straight so the drivers could read, "Bridge Out."

Then the next would gesture to his sign, telling the cars to "Reduce Speed."

And as the motorists complied, they would then see the third sign, "Right Road Only." And though the road was narrow, the cars complied and were safe. Hundreds of lives were saved by the three sign holders. Because they did their job, many people were kept from peril.

But after a few hours they grew lax in their task.

The first man got sleepy. "I'll sit where people can read my sign as I sleep," he decided. So he took his sign off his shoulders and propped it up against a boulder. He leaned against it and fell asleep. As he slept his arm slid over the sign, blocking one of the two words. So rather than read "Bridge Out," his sign simply stated "Bridge."

The second didn't grow tired, but he did grow conceited. The longer he stood warning the people the more important he felt. A few even pulled off to the side of the road to thank him for the job well done.

"We might have died had you not told us to slow down," they applauded.

"You're so right," he thought to himself. "How many people would be lost were it not for me?"

Presently he came to think that he was just as important as his sign. So he took it off, set it up on the ground, and stood beside it. As he did, he was unaware that he, too, was blocking one word of his warning. He was standing in front of the word "Speed." All the drivers could read was the word "Reduce." Most thought he was advertising a diet plan.

The third man was not tired like the first, nor self-consumed like the second. But he was concerned about the message of his sign. "Right Road Only," it read.

It troubled him that his message was so narrow, so dogmatic. "People should be given a choice in the matter. Who am I to tell them which is the right road and which is the wrong road?"

So he decided to alter the wording of the sign. He marked out the word "Only" and changed it to "Preferred."

"Hmm," he thought, "that's still too strident. One is best not to moralize. So he marked out the word "Preferred" and wrote "Suggested."

That still didn't seem right, "Might offend people if they think I'm suggesting I know something they don't."

So he thought and thought and finally marked through the word "Suggested" and replaced it with a more neutral phrase.

"Ahh, just right," he said to himself as he backed off and read the words:

"Right Road—One of Two Equally Valid Alternatives."

And so as the first man slept and the second stood and the third altered the message, one car after another plunged into the river.

From A Gentle Thunder
Copyright (Thomas Nelson, 1995) Max Lucado

How to pack light

Heres something all of you frequent travelers might find useful.

In case I am tempted!

HT: Vit Z

Today's links 21/4/2010

1. Thomas Watson, Body of Divinity, pp. 13-14:

"We glorify God by working out our own salvation. God has twisted together His glory and our good. We glorify him by promoting our own salvation. It is a glory to God to have multitudes of converts; now, his design of free grace takes, and God has the glory of his mercy; so that, while we are endeavoring our salvation, we are honoring God.

What an encouragement is this to the service of God, to think while I am hearing and praying, I am glorifying God; while I am furthering my own glory in heaven, I am increasing God’s glory.

Would it not be an encouragement to a subject, to hear his prince say to him, you will honor and please me very much, if you will go to yonder mine of gold, and dig as much gold for yourself as you can carry away?

So, for God to say, Go to the ordinances, get as much grace as you can, dig out as much salvation as you can; and the more happiness you have, the more I shall count myself glorified."

(HT: Justin Taylor)



2. The Deadly Drug....Can you guess what it is?

"Imagine a drug so powerful it can destroy a family simply by distorting a man’s perception of his wife. Picture an addiction so lethal it has the potential to render an entire generation incapable of forming lasting marriages and so widespread that it produces more annual revenue — $97 billion worldwide in 2006 — than all of the leading technology companies combined. Consider a narcotic so insidious that it evades serious scientific study and legislative action for decades, thriving instead under the ever-expanding banner of the First Amendment.

According to an online statistics firm, an estimated 40 million people use this drug on a regular basis. It doesn’t come in pill form. It can’t be smoked, injected, or snorted. And yet neurological data suggest its effects on the brain are strikingly similar to those of synthetic drugs. Indeed, two authorities on the neurochemistry of addiction, Harvey Milkman and Stanley Sunderwirth, claim it is the ability of this drug to influence all three pleasure systems in the brain — arousal, satiation, and fantasy — that makes it “the pièce de résistance among the addictions.”




3. Many of you must have heard about the furore caused by the decision of a single mother in Tennessee to 'return' a boy she had adopted from Russia. She simply boarded the seven-year-old onto a plane to Russia, with a note saying she had been lied to by the adoption agency in Russia. Russia has now announced that they have placed on hold all adoptions to the US, which is a nightmare situation for the many families who are midway through the process of adoption already.

You can read some of the stories here, here and here

As you can see, the story is so complicated.
1. There is always a risk when you adopt a child.
2. An adopted child is, nevertheless, now your own child. When things go wrong (as happens even with many biological children), you just cannot send the child away. You would not do that if the child was your biological child.
3. The adoption agency must be honest with the adopting couple, and be available for ongoing advice and help, as needs arise.




4. Aborting the "wrong" baby

(From Al Mohler, HT: Vitamin Z)

"The news out of Sarasota, Florida caught many people by surprise. A doctor in the city has lost his license because he aborted what is now described as the “wrong” baby. Back in 2006, Dr. Matthew Kachinas had been asked to perform an abortion on a baby that had been identified as having Down syndrome and other congenital defects. Instead, the doctor aborted that baby’s healthy twin."

"....What are we to make of this? We now know that the vast majority of babies identified prenatally as carrying the genetic markers for Down syndrome are aborted. National statistics indicate that 80-90% of such babies are now aborted — meaning that we have launched a search and destroy mission on Down syndrome babies in the womb.

The situation with Dr. Kachinas reveals the horribly confused morality that marks modern America and, in far too many cases, the practice of medicine. This doctor was asked to perform what is now euphemistically called a “selective reduction.” Instead, he aborted “the wrong baby,” killing a healthy baby instead of the baby identified as carrying the markers for Down syndrome."

Dr Mohler then asks this question....

"This news story out of Florida is a warning to the entire nation. What is the real scandal here — that this doctor was ready to kill a baby with Down syndrome, or merely that he aborted “the wrong baby?”

The answer to that question will tell us all we need to know about the conscience of the age."




5. Man arrested at Large Hadron Collider claims he's from the future

Can you figure out what happened?

He is Risen indeed!

Friday Morning....










Friday Evening....






Friday Night and Saturday....






Sunday Morning....

Climbing College Hill

On Friday, we climbed College Hill, a small hill behind the college campus.It was wonderful to watch Anand's excitement. He took to hill-climbing like a natural, and wanted to do everything himself. With very little help, he managed to do the entire climb.





We made it to the TOP!






and spent our time at the top watching cloud formations, watching the tiny people and vehicles, and eating grapes.





That's Toad Hill in the background. It gets its name from the small toad-like rock on the top. Maybe we'll climb that next.




Arpita felt an appropriate song for the climb down was "She'll be sliding down the mountains when she comes!"

BTW, how do you like Anand's summer hair-cut?

A song for good friday

http://www.michaelkellyblanchard.com/cdsbooks/tlotf.mp3


I could listen to the above song over and over and over again!

I hope you all have a wonderful Easter weekend. This has been one of the most powerful Lent seasons for me in my memory! I feel as though I've been brought to a deeper understanding of some of my greatest frailties. There's a name for this - conviction!

So often I look in all the wrong places for what God so willingly offers me (of all people) in Ephesians 1:3-8! Read it! And, claim it! (I'm mostly telling myself this) ;)

On the home front, the girls are doing really well. Safina is getting so big and she is so smart. She's so confidant and exuberant. She smiles at all kids in the park and introduces herself like this, "My name is Safina and I'm three years old."

On Monday she was snipping at a magazine with some child-scissors and when I went to put some dishes in the dishwasher, she snipped at a chuck of her hair. So, I spent a few days talking to her about some of our options. And, we ended up cutting 11 inches off and donating it to Locks of Love. I wasn't sure if she would go for it. But, I knew we were going to have to make a dramatic cut anyway and I told her this way, some child who has lost their hair can now have hair. So, she felt good about it. She got two lollipops from the hair salon and a certificate for donating her hair. I'll post a few pictures soon.

Serena is crawling all over the place. I need to upload a video of how she's crawling. She is so adorable. Both of our girls remind me SO much of Mummy! Right down to their little toes! Serena, even more so than Safina curls and bends her toes in the same way her granny does! It's fascinating to watch.

Sharing is a hard thing. Serena is getting tired of having her big sister grab things and lets her voice be heard. Safina is quite the tough big sister at times. But, when Serena is really really sad, she'll go over and comfort her and caress her and give her lots of kisses.

We feel so blessed to be their parents! And, hope and pray we can honor God as their parents! It's a challenge on a daily basis for sure. But there are so many teachable moments for all of us. I'm always so struck by how much the girls teach me about the love of Christ!

May you each be filled with the Spirit!

Love,
juliana

Today's links 2/4/2010

Short clips from two sermons by S. M. Lockeridge

1. "That's My King!"




2. "Sunday is Coming"



(HT: Justin Taylor)


3. A nice post from Shaun Groves (accompanied with some great photos) where he explains how the death of one of his teachers taught him how to live, and says that, for him, "Retirement is Now"


4. A nice sentence I found in the "Profile" of a blogger......

Just trying to be a Mary in a Martha kind of world.


5. Grace Driscoll answers the question:

"As the wife of a pastor and the daughter of a pastor, what are your thoughts and feelings about the precedent Dr. Piper’s announcement makes for his family and the families of other ministry leaders who look to him for leadership?"

She writes that there are Eight Godly Precedents set by John Piper taking a Sabbatical

(HT: Vitamin Z)

"The Toll of our Toiling"

Most of you may have heard the "big news" that John Piper is taking a 8 month break, ("No sermon preparation or preaching. No blogging. No Twitter. No articles. No reports. No papers. And no speaking engagements."), because, he says, "the precious garden of my home needs tending." You can read his announcement here.

Christianity Today ran a surprisingly admiring article about this development, saying, "Thousands of ministers who have learned from Piper through his books, sermons, and conference talks will now have opportunity to learn from his silence."

The author gives examples of how "an intense work regimen was ingrained in several evangelical leaders of the post-war era." and concludes,

"Evangelical leaders serve out of their personal relationship with Christ, modeling the life of faith for others. Yet it is exceedingly difficult to tend to this most important relationship, not to mention our friends and family, when work consumes every day. To be sure, we're called to toil for Christ, "struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works" within us (Col. 1:29). Even during the busyness of this Lenten season, though, we might follow Piper's example and pause to examine the toll of our toiling and the state of our souls. Does our work truly point others to the power of Christ? If not, it may draw attention to the one who plants and waters, not the God who gives the growth (1 Cor. 3:7). Ministers who lose this perspective are in danger of losing their congregations, not to mention their families.

Instead, let us live up to our belief in the God who holds out the promise of Sabbath rest for his people. If God rested from his works, so can we (Heb. 4:9-10)."

Our new desktop wallpaper

Chosen by Arpita for April, this verse speaks so much encouragement to my soul.



(click on the picture for a better view)

Today's links 28/3/2010

1. Christ Conducts His Choir




(HT: David Murray )

"In this astounding video, American composer and conductor Eric Whitacre spliced together nearly 250 videos of individuals singing individual parts of “Lux Arumque.” He sent out the music, auditioned the singers, and then chose 250 of the submitted videos, which he spliced together to form this “virtual choir.”

As I watched in wonder, I could not help thinking of how Christ our Mediator gathers His people’s praises from every church and every believer in the world every Sunday and presents them, as a perfect choir, to His Father.

Then my mind went further and “I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; and cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sits upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.""



2. I recently spent two hours watching "An Evening Of Eschatology". This was a round-table debate between Doug Wilson (representing the post-millenial view), Jim Hamilton (representing pre-millenialism) and Sam Storms (representing amillenialism), and moderated by John Piper. I seem to be moving towards thinking that amillenialism is probably the correct view. What do you think?



3. (HT: Thabiti Anyabwile)

“It is a growing conviction of mine that no parish can fulfill its true function unless there is at the very center of its leadership life a small community of quietly fanatic, changed and truly converted Christians. The trouble with most parishes is that nobody, including the pastor, is really greatly changed. . . .

We do not want ordinary men. Ordinary men cannot win the brutally pagan life of a city like New York for Christ. We want quiet fanatics.”

John Heuss, Our Christian Vocation (Greenwish, 1955), pages 15-16.



4. I also watched this sermon By Michael Horton on Christ and the Workplace.

Christ and the Workplace from Westminster Seminary California on Vimeo.

This addressed a question I have often asked myself, especially with all that I hear about the Christian doctor. Dr Horton gave me much to think about, and so, I looked him up online, and found an interview he gave, where he discussed some of these questions, and found even more to mull about.



5. Talk Deeply, Be Happy

"Would you be happier if you spent more time discussing the state of the world and the meaning of life — and less time talking about the weather?

It may sound counterintuitive, but people who spend more of their day having deep discussions and less time engaging in small talk seem to be happier, said Matthias Mehl, a psychologist at the University of Arizona"



6. It's hard to stop laughing once you really get going, even when you know you should not be laughing in the first place!



(HT: Vit Z)

Oscar Romero: Reflections for Lent

It is 30 years ago this week that a sniper killed Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero with a single bullet that exploded through his heart as he said mass.

Read an article here.

Read some meditations of Oscar Romero in a book (download here) called The Violence of Love.

Excerpts:

People do not mortify themselves during Lent
out of a sick desire to suffer.
God did not make us for suffering.
If we fast or do penances or pray,
it is for a very positive goal:
by overcoming self
one achieves the Easter resurrection.
We do not just celebrate a risen Christ,
distinct from us,
but during Lent we prepare ourselves
to rise with him to a new life
and to become the new persons
that are what the country needs right now.
Let us not just shout slogans
about new structures;
new structures will be worthless
without new persons
to administer the new structures the country needs
and live them out in their lives.
February 17, 1980

This Lent, which we observe amid blood and sorrow, ought to presage a transfiguration of our people, a resurrection of our nation. The church invites us to a modern form of penance, of fasting and prayer – perennial Christian practices, but adapted to the circumstances of each people.

Lenten fasting is not the same thing in those lands where people eat well as is a Lent among our third-world peoples, undernourished as they are, living in a perpetual Lent, always fasting. For those who eat well, Lent is a call to austerity, a call to give away in order to share with those in need. But in poor lands, in homes where there is hunger, Lent should be observed in order to give to the sacrifice that is everyday life the meaning of the cross.

But it should not be out of a mistaken sense of resignation. God does not want that. Rather, feeling in one’s own flesh the consequences of sin and injustice, one is stimulated to work for social justice and a genuine love for the poor. Our Lent should awaken a sense of social justice.

Let us observe our Lent thus, giving our sufferings, our bloodshed, our sorrow the same value that Christ gave to his own condition of poverty, oppression, abandonment, and injustice. Let us change all that into the cross of salvation that redeems the world and our people. And with hatred for none, let us be converted and share both joys and material aids, in our poverty, with those who may be even needier.
March 2, 1980

Easter is itself now the cry of victory.
No one can quench the life that Christ has resurrected.
Neither death nor all the banners of death and hatred
raised against him and against his church can prevail.
He is the victorious one!

Just as he will thrive in an unending Easter,
so we must accompany him in a Lent and a Holy Week
of cross, sacrifice, and martyrdom.
As he said, blessed are they who are not scandalized
by his cross.

Lent, thus, is a call to celebrate our redemption
in that difficult combination of cross and victory.
Our people are well prepared to do so these days:
all that surrounds us proclaims the cross.
But those who have Christian faith and hope
know that behind this Calvary of El Salvador
lies our Easter,
our resurrection.
That is the Christian people’s hope.
March 23, 1980

Isaiah 26:3

My aunt sent me this. It is a tremendous comfort. And, it's so amazing how much depth there is to one verse in the Bible!!! I wrote this out and am taping it to our cupboard in our kitchen!

Is 26:3

You will keep in perfect peace him whose

mind is steadfast, because he trusts in You.

1. You will keep: Hbrw for keep is nasar

meaning to guard protect, keep, used to denote

guarding a vineyard, a fortress, God is a

watchman guarding over my thoughts 

2. …in perfect peace: perfect peace Hbrw

        means shalom meaning safe, peaceful, sense of

Well-being, prosperous relationship between

2 people.

3. …him whose mind is steadfast: mind in

Hbrw means is yester it means frame, pattern,

image, conception, imagination thought, device. 

It is what is formed in the mind-plans purposes.

Frame: more than physical, our minds work to

frame every circumstance, temptation and

experience we have,

Hebrw for steadfast is samak meaning to sustain,

to be braced, to lean upon to lay on, to lay one

hand on.  When temptation and troubling thoughts

come the steadfast believer chooses to lay her

hand on God’s word and know that it’s true.  

4.)  …because he trust in You: trust in

Hbrw is batach meaning to attach oneself,

to confide in feel safe, be confident, secure.

Like a small child who trust her parents. 

The Lord be the Watchman of my mind-help

me to love and trust you alone.

Excuse me?

Dinner done, Anand slid off his chair onto the floor. His parents, however, were still eating.

Mom: Anand, I didn't hear you excuse yourself. Can we try it again? Can you get back onto your chair, and excuse yourself before leaving the table?

(Anand climbs back into his chair)

Anand: Excuse me.....?

Mom: Yes, of course, baby, you may leave the table.

Anand slid off the chair again, and looked up at his mom, with question marks all over his face.

"What's the point, Mama?"

Swords into ploughshares contd.

Below is an article by Jeph Mathias published in the NZ Christian magazine "Tui Motu", which contains the compelling arguments I mentioned before. Feel free to comment. I've put it here with his permission, to help in our discussion.

International air travel, just like hitchhiking, tins you like a sardine: the doors close and you're packed beside another body fished from the human ocean, rubbing shoulders and breathing the same air. Even if you are from very different walks of life you might identify commonalities and intersecting interests, exchange what is in your head and occasionally your heart. Destination reached the door peels open like a lid, your canned-fish camaraderie is broken and you never see each other again. It doesn’t always work but 'sardine tin' conversations can be the best.

On my way to the health project we work on in a tiny Himalayan village the eleven hour Christchurch-Singapore sector put me next to Steve, a Central Otago grape grower and vintner off to peddle his wares at an international wine fair. We started with the Crusader’s chances in the super fourteen, the pleasures of parenthood, the world price of oil and the arcane science of turning thin sun, dry soil and cold air into fine wine. The harsher the conditions the finer the flavour Steve reckons. Then I opened the magazine section of the Sunday paper and found a large picture and long interview with Peter Murnane, the Dominican friar who broke into the US spy base at Waihopai with two others, popped a balloon and set up a shrine. Only the ‘balloon’ was an information collecting satellite worth $1million and they had illegally entered a national security installation. Cutting a 40,000V security fence to find it turned off no doubt has embarrassed somebody powerful.

“What d'ya reckon about these guys” I asked Steve.

He replied in a crisp end-of-matter tone “We'll just have anarchy if we don't lock their type up”.

He didn’t add “and throw away the key” but made it clear that for him it would be no bad thing if the key were somehow mislaid. I tried various angles to tease out the nuances of the issue, for instance

“D’y reckon it can be right to break the law if it is a wrong law”

“Dunno mate” he said “but those guys knew the rules and broke them. Lock 'em up.”

He turned on his monitor and started surfing the in flight movies, leaving me to ponder it all myself. Anarchy seemed to be central and “The Second Coming”, was it by Yeats?, came to mind. As best as I remember it goes:

Turning and turning

in the widening gyre

the falcon cannot hear the falconer

Things fall apart,

the centre cannot hold

mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.

“Things fall apart... mere anarchy is loosed up on the world.” Don't we all, at some level, fear the uncertainty that things might fall apart, our things… our safe thing-filled lives? “Anarchy” is derived from Greek an (without) and arche (rules). We want, need, no crave rules- glue to hold our centres together.

But turning and turning the word anarchy around in the gyre ever-widening inside my own head I began to doubt that a safe, predictable rule based world is necessarily a good world. When legal and moral diverge being a good law abiding citizen may be wrong. Take South Africa in the bad old days of apartheid. Most citizens, white and black, chose the legal, complied with immoral laws, kept their heads down and looked after their families. Yet they were grateful to Mandela and others who chose truth over the law. The centre, trying to hold itself together, gave Mandela “the terrorist” 23 years on Robben Island to ponder the nuances of legal and moral. When apartheid finally fell apart the Oslo committee gave Mandela the Nobel Peace Prize. We cheered and told ourselves we too would have chosen moral over legal.

Now let's consider the economic rules of the world in which we participate. These rules allow some people to fly around the world to visit health projects or sell wine for delicate palates while, debarred from most of the world’s resources, others live in villages and watch their children die of TB or malnutrition. Through that lens we see ourselves unquestioningly complying with an immoral global economic apartheid. Shouldn’t we resist, be a little anarchist?

The gospels often push me into the grey zone between legal and moral. I’m in the crowd around the adulteress turning and turning a heavy stone in my hand while some hippie talks of not following the law. And I’m a good temple-on-the-Sabbath Jew with my wife and children feeling things falling apart when a ranting madman appears, turning over tables and swinging a whip. When a paralyzed man gets up and walks would I have been with the Pharisees or the long haired guy? Time and again Jesus shows us how to choose rightly when the paths of legal and true diverge. And notice his answer when someone tossed him a coin. The moral dimension was not clearly identified, the question was simply about political power so he said “Rend to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is Gods” Great answer. Hard to live, the second bit at least.

But back to Peter and Co in front of their burst balloon and their shrine. I hadn't told Steve-the-vintner but I know Peter well. Long ago he was a priest at my church, visiting prisoners and refugees and quietly inspiring us to higher things. He married us, Kaaren and me but when I moved from Auckland I only heard of his more spectacularly news-worthy exploits: protesting the Iraq invasion by daubing a cross in his own blood (clandestinely secreted in a bag strapped to his leg) on the carpet in front of the gaping US consul, cycling from Canberra to Uluru to urge the Australian government to apologize long before Kevin Rudd’s famous “Sorry” and mot famously offering a home and support to Ahmed Zhaoui as the NZ government bent to the powerful world centre. They said “We’re breaking the rules to keep order but anyone else who does is a terrorist”. As yet another person was detained without trial most of us just looked on because the centre held us in its thrall. But Peter, again, tested the ice most of us blithely skate over by saying “He is a human being”. We need his type, prophets who fly falcon-like, shake the centres we crave to hold and loosen things we strive to keep together. Now he’s popped a balloon used to help USA's war of terror and he’s looking at me out of a Sunday newspaper.

Suddenly all was clear. Peter’s action/prayer is not in that fraught space between legal and moral where we sometimes find ourselves. The invasion of Iraq, lies about Sadddam's weapons, the coalition's own grotesque weapons of mass destruction, Abu Gharib and Guantanamo Bay ... these are all illegal and immoral. If Peter and friends get time behind bars it will be for going into the still more slippery underground room of our world. The room under the cellar door which most of us keep firmly bolted while we continue neatly ordered lives upstairs. The scary room. But we’re meant to go down. All my heroes did. Mandela got 23 years, Jesus got a cross. Gandhi, Luther-King and others died trying to bring light to where power grapples with truth. And there it was! Jesus’ message soft and clear: Love and Truth are your rules. Follow them. Live them. No matter what. If you meekly do what you’re told, go where you're pushed the terrible anarchy of unresisted power will be loosed upon the world.

Beside me Steve was asleep, head back and mouth open.

I reached my hand up to shake him awake, ready to say “Steve, Steve! Not breaking immoral laws- that’s what leads to anarchy.”

But I didn’t.

interesting perspective

Well, I thought I'd open another can of worms. Have you all heard of that saying? I tend to use a lot of American idioms without even knowing it sometimes.

Anyway, I'd be curious to know what your take is on this. I've read a lot of books by C.S. Lewis and have really appreciated his way with words. But, his view on the Bible could be viewed as highly controversial.

http://submerging.reclaimingthemind.org/blogs/2007/12/19/c-s-lewis-his-most-controversial-statement/

Swords into ploughshares

A friend of a friend... along with 2 other friends... are on trial this week in New Zealand.

Heres a question for us to debate... Would you do something illegal, if there was a moral imperative to do so?

In April 2008, three Christian pacifists, Sam Land, Peter Murnane and Adi Leason, entered the Waihopai spy base and deflated a pressurised dome covering one of the satellite dishes.
This followed in the tradition of previous “non-violent direct actions” by the Ploughshares movement in which military planes, ships, hardware and bases were symbolically disarmed. In the last 20 years Ploughshares activists have undertaken over 120 of these actions. One of these, in 1991, involved New Zealander Moana Cole who disarmed a B52 bomber by hitting it with a hammer. She was imprisoned in the USA for a year.

Sam, Peter and Adi, who are practising Catholics, used sickles to deflate the dome, symbolically disarming the spy base. Their aim was to draw attention to New Zealand’s involvement in the US war in Iraq through the presence of this base in our country. While waiting to be arrested, they prayed and set up a shrine in remembrance of victims of US torture, assassination and mass murder.
The hope of the Ploughshares activists is the closing of the Waihopai spy base and the severing of military links to the United States.
* Waihopai spy base is not a weather station, as previously reported.
* Waihopai is a major secret US spy base.
Waihopai is NZ’s biggest contribution to America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
* Waihopai intercepts and records your international phone calls and e-mail.
* Waihopai is part of a five nation network of global surveillance known as “Echelon” which is implicated in the mass killings of innocent civilians.
* Waihopai does not operate in the interests of NZ or our neighbours.
* Waihopai is not effectively accountable to Parliament or the people. It is exempt from key provisions of the Privacy Act and Crimes Act
* Waihopai intercepts huge volumes of electronic data and sends it to Washington for analysis by the US military.
* Waihopai has cost the NZ taxpayer $500 million to build and operate over the last 20 years.
* Waihopai is shrouded in secrecy and key information about the base - such as who exactly is being spied on and what happens to the information - is classified

Also read profiles of the 3 men and an interview with one of them.

Did somebody say being a paediatric surgeon is fun?

I was called over to the pediatric ward to see a child who had developed a painful swelling in the buttock. He had been diagnosed to have leukemia, and started on chemotherapy.

So there I was, squinting at this kid's bottom, and wondering whether to drain this abscess, when he let fly with an expulsive explosion, and, (there's no pleasant way to say this) shat all over my face. There was stuff in my eyebrows, beard, and everywhere else. Fortunately, I had kept my mouth shut......