One topic

There is only one topic in SA and that is the heatwave, although I slept relatively well (but I did watch TV until late) I did wake up feeling tired and a bit shaky.
With no relief in sight for another week obviously the place to be is Robe, where is is a mere 38!
Being as how there is not much we can do about it, I think we just have to keep on saying "It's OK! This is Australia and it's hot in summer!" .......Sure is!! (Bureau of Meteorology here)

You can't expect to be taken seriously when....

• You send a letter telling people they have just inherited a lot of moneyand it has spelling mistakes in it, or as in the recent one" According to the English law, the fortune is supposed to be queathed.(sic) to the government...." There do seem to be some references to "queathed" but almost all seem ancient and probably typographical errors as they invariably are a past participle preceded by 'be'
  

Summer's lease

It's dark in the morning! It was nice to get up and water at 6 a.m. But it was dark!
This is my annual groan about daylight saving. There are still 2 months and 5 days to go.
One can almost bear the thought of the end fo February being the official end, but it will not end until April 5th.
It is this morning darkness that I find hard to take (heaven knows what it is like in Ceduna).
It does not take too long after the southern midsummer solstice (by my reckoning 21 or 22 December) to realise the days get shorter, the sun rises later...so today it was still dark (even if 34 degrees) at 6.
This is the efffect of daylight saving. Not so awful today when technically sunrise was at 6.31....on the penultimate day of daylight saving (April 4) it will be 7.31...this the effect of making it later and later.

Now I can't think this is a good strategy from the point of view of power since I suspect that people use less power once they retire for the day (ie. lots of people turn offf the heating and/or air conditioning) but on a day such as today...you get up put it on and it plugs on until 9 at night.
Well a bit convoluted but you know what I mean.
This is not the same thing as daylight saving making the curtains fade....its about eking another hour of activity out of the day. An hour of light heat and power
Enough for now

Sorry but no!

I rather think that Australia Day is a curiosity, and that the call to change the date is timely. Though it is not easy to see how this discussion can take place, without its assuming greater importance than is warranted.
It is not more important than the republican issue, and we are not having that debate. It is not more important than debate about aboriginal health and education...or indeed anyone else's education and health. It is not more important than debate and discussion about the economy and the need to get ourselves back in shape.
It is a symbolical issue, and symbols are important...as a religious person I know that all too well....but it would seem to be low down the discussion list at the moment.
It doesn't mean that it shouldn't be publicly named and from time to time discussed, but it does mean that at a time when there are other pressing issues...more pressing than this one...that maybe we have to wait.
In that sense, I think Prime Minister Rudd is right to signal very quickly and clearly that he cannot justify being diverted by this discussion.
But in reality, in a democracy (PTL) we can discuss what we like...the PM is just telling us he won't (or perhaps can't) join in at this time

On being young and free

At least most people seem to be getting this year that to sing (as you do) our national anthem and rejoice that we are 'young and free' is yet another example of simply ignoring any idea that we have an indigenous culture. A culture which, depending on your reckoning, is 40 probably 60 and maybe even 100 thousand years old.
I am not entirely happy with the description that it is the longest continuing culture in the world, (though the case can be made and I am open to being convinced). That, I think, begs the question about whether Australian aboriginal culture has the consistency for such a period that would mean there is anything more than the tenuous link that we live on an island and so it must be 'continuing' in that sense.
But that there has been art, music, story, familial structure, aetiological mythology,is abundantly clear.
Mabo and Wik articulated from a legal point of view that as far as this country is concerned it was not an uninhabited wasteland just wasting for the young and free to some and rape it.

On this Australia Day remember we are both young and free and also old and deep

The price is eternal vigilance

Nothing gives me the willies like the death sentence. Every now and then it just creeps up behind you and you think..."Given half a chance the populace would vote for it."
Its stupidity is exposed from time to time, and indeed its evil nature.
The announcement this week that China will execute two people involved in the milk scandal (you know where stuff got into milk, lollies...etc... and people died as a result) exposes some things about the death sentence that are worth noting.
Now China is China, and because they are big, influential and rich we usually just shut up and let them get on with it. But this is ridiculous.
Even in Texas they don't execute people for industrial malfeisance. It rather exposes that what China does so often with its penalties is to demonstrate that it is doing the right thing (in its eyes)...it is not punishing, it is showing it is tough.
Because we can see that it is stupid to even consider execution for such crime, it raises the question of whether it is justified for anything. Just what does it achieve other than the sense that we are tough.
What gives me the willies, then, is the fear that the bully in us..as nations and as individuals...often just wins out.It is not, and is never, about rationality.

momentous momentum

In a week which has seen all sorts of things happen it will be interesting to check back and see if it has all made much difference.
It has been for me a great mixture. From the grand scale of the beginning of of the presidency of Barck Obama, to dinner with friends last night...a sort of annual check up.
Which, in my scheme of things, is more important?
Yesterday,too, I took a funeral of the mother of a parishioner. A momentous and unexpected event for that family; from teary ten year old grandson to teary 40 something year old devastated daughter.
Heath Ledger was nominated for an academy award for a film I can't bear to see, on the first anniversary of his death by drug overdose (whether deliberate or accidental) which I blogged about this time last year (here)
I went to the doctor yesterday to get a couple opf routine referrals and came away anaemic and feeling that I had a hundred things wrong with me.
The Premier was in rapture on radio because Tour Down Under was being reported on the front page of the New York Times.
I noted at dinner last night that the much touted economic woes seemed to have been allowed to drift into the back of our minds. It was not that they have gone away it is that we are easily distracted, even desirous of being so.
It's a lot of stuff for one week.
And the tomatoes have just kept coming!

A waste of time?

The social networking blog Twitter keeps this record of how people blogged yesterday during the inauguration window.
It would seem that entries doubled at the actual time.
What does it mean?

Proper Gander

With regard to my previous post about atheistic buses in London (here). I just find it curious that that the atheistic message There's probably no God ... now stop worrying and enjoy your life. Should be taken seriously.
As if those who believe in God find that such belief causes worry and poor quality of life. Or that atheism enahnces one's quality of life (One only has to mention the word 'Stalin' to recognise that such an argument is ludicrous).
Most Christians (and I would imagine religious people in general) would probably claim that belief in God significantly enhances the human condition. Most 'outsiders' (and I use that word advisedly) seem to think that the life of faith is boring tedious and humourless. Strangely we insiders seem to think it is quite the reverse.

Day of Optimism

Yes!! the alarm did go off at 2.44 to allow me to watch the inauguration. And it was, I thought, good, and worth doing. Though I feel a little tired now!!!
Mr and Mrs President already looked tired!!

Interesting to see amongst other things :

• how religious it was...more religious in a way than an Anglican ceremony in Abbey or Cathedral..People of the Lord do justice and love mercy, and let all people who agree say Amen! and Let them say Amen!!
• how regal it was...despite there being no royalty in the USA, the royal families were all there, and there is no doubt a fresh prince has arrived!
• how informal it was...whilst also being formal...I am used to weddings being like this these days. People happily greeting each other, and the genuine spirit of goodwill

There is indeed a spirit of hope and optimism, so let's try and not be too cynical about it for today.
And let all people who agree.....say Amen

On being boring!

As part of my commitment to being both boastful and boring I do intend to regale you dear reader with pictures of tomatoes. This is not the first, but it's looking to be the best so far. It was almost all I could do to not pick it. Not a hose has been used, in these drought stricken times, in tending to these plants. Perhaps taking the time to do it with a watering can whilst thinking about the day ahead and saying a few prayers is a good way to go about it...and (as it were) bears fruit.

Lest you think (too) that this is a total fluke, there is also plenteous basil of three types, parsley, rocket and lettuce.
There are eggplants coming along, and silver beet and bok choy.
So it will just get more boring (for you) from now on!!! But be assured it is enlivening for me!

Michael Leunig wrote this excellent prayer about the tomato phenomenon

It is time to plant tomatoes.
Dear God, we praise this fruit and give thanks for its life and evolution.
We salute the tomato,
cheery,fragrant morsel, beloved provider,
survivor and thriver and giver of life.
Giving and giving and giving.


Plump with summer's joy.
The scent of its stem is summers' joy, its promise and rapture.
Its branches breathe perfume fo promise and rapture.
Giving and giving and giving.

Dear God, give strength to the wings and knees of pollinating bees,
give protection from hailstorms, gales and frosts,
give warm days and quenching rains.
Refresh and adorn our gardens and our tables.
Refresh us with tomatoes.

Rejoice and rejoice!
Celebrate the scarlet soul of winter sauces.
Behold the delicious flavour!
Behold the oiled vermillion moons
that ride and dive in olive-bobbing seas of vinegared lettuce.
Let us rejoice!
Let this rejoicing be our thanks for tomatoes.

Amen.

Leunig - 'A Common prayer'.

I wouldn't be seen dead in....

I think the Tour Down Under is a great thing; but, while it is not surprising that so many people dust off their bikes this week, it really is astonishing how many people actually own lycra!!
Personally I wouldn't/couldn't/shouldn't (take your pick) be seen dead in it!
I mean millions of lycrapillars must have had to die to fuel this week's enthusiasm

Will try to do better!

Dear Readers
I have determined to do better with blogging. I think it is the onslaught of competing social networks ----there is only so much time--- remember when all you had to do was check your email

There's probably no God!

If you have been following the curiosity of the London bus slogans...where London buses have been allowed to carry atheist propaganda such as : "There's probably no God ... now stop worrying and enjoy your life."
Then you probably won't be surprised to read (here) that at least one driver has refused to drive a bus that has such a slogan. It's interesting that his company have decided to try and let him drive other buses which don't carry the offensive (to him) ideology.
It raises the question of whether Roman Catholics might not have to drive buses that advertise contraception, or pacifists buses that advertise the armed forces.
It's a bizarre little world.

Ordinary people

Watching the hideous movie-documentary about the Battle of the Somme, I am reminded amidst statistics like ...19,000 men died...120,000 went over the top...that one of the mildest mannered people I knew was there.

He was a sunday school teacher when I knew him, a grocer who walked two miles to work every day...and two miles back each night.

he and his wife gave himself to the quiet life

That of course was only the first day...in the end there were one million dead wounded and missing.

Pineapple Fritter

One commentator notes on one of my recent posts that "Grace doesn't appear to have lasted the week!"
Cryptic...but this could mean many things
I guess it flows from my original post about various small graces (here); though it is posted against my comments about Howard receiving the medal of "Freedom" from that great Freedom Fighter...George Bush...(here) or maybe it's just a reflection on the hideous state of affairs in Gaza.
So I just make my response a bit more obvious.....I think that part of the issue for the spiritual person is not that we should think that "grace" is an invitation to be pathetic, and to overlook the faults of others; to demur and be sweetly nice in the face of other people's appalling garbage, (like ranking Howard alongside Nelson Mandela) . But rather that we should recognise that (like a baby born) God touches our world more profoundly than we think...but goes unnoticed, and/or that we fritter away God's abundant life.
But I do say....
1. I am not gracious to JH... true I have found it difficult for some time to see him as anything other than the supreme political opportunist. The victim of his own hubris. Who would do anything to stay in power, and bend in any direction if it would get him re-elected.
2. The Gaza situation. There is always a deep sadness about the sort of gross abuse that is war (on both sides)
3. On a smaller scale our life fritters the grace away so easily, I guess the call to the spiritual person is to try and hang on to this and to recognise it in our midst. The message of Christmas

The shadow of the Middle East

Amidst everything else the shadow of the Gaza catastrophe casts darkness over what should be the great rejoicing of the forthcoming inauguration.
Obama seems to me like the sort of person who will not be so easily hidden, but we shall have to see.

No surprise

I don't know why we should be surprised by such things...but news that John Howard will receive the US Medal of Freedom from outgoing President Bush seems some what indecent.
You could think that David Hicks doesn't really have the right to complain, but Mohammed Hanif certainly does. The Captain of the "Tampa" could be forgiven for being outraged, anyone who has been interned on Christmas Island, or Nauru could certainly make the case for being annoyed.
Perhaps, more importantly, any indigenous Australian who had to suffer the bitter stubborness of an arrogant little man who, despite his desire to be seen as an international statesman, could not be seen to utter one little word of apology...well they could eb rightly outraged.
But it rather gives the lie to the quality of such awards.
I always feel disappointed with our national honours to see that so many of those who are given AC and AM are already rewarded with power and wealth, one hope this year it may be different...but it probably won't

A week of grace

It has been good this week to do a little catching up with people as well as just attend to things that need a bit of attention. To watch the tomatoes grow....Harvested the first couple two days ago...and am awaiting the torrent that will arrive with the burst of hot weather that we are about to have.
So, some highlights of the week have been

• the mildest of weather
• oysters and other sea food
• visit and lunch with friends form Tasmania
• the fact that one's sister now seems a bit clearer about what has been making her feel unwell
• a lovely New Years' Eve in which I talked too much, and it didn't seem to matter
• a longish phone call from M in which we both just agreed that the best way for the modern priest is to try and be faithful to our vocation and not pretend we are managers (of decline or anything else)
• wines, red and white
• a night at Port Elliott and a bit of reading

on the whole a great deal of grace....but I must needs go and do the Christmas letter which is now an Epiphany letter...or it will really be too late.

Happy New Year

Here at this midnight hour it is 2009 in Australia.To you all, a happy holy and safe year.
Save water! Live in peace! Use less energy! And Happy birthday Claire Isabel....born yesterday!!!