Sunday, 29 December 2013
Sunday, 22 December 2013
Advent 4
The readings we're following for advent this year had 'Love' as the theme for the fourth Sunday of advent. One of the hymns we sung is below. It has such good words that I've copied them below. If you click on the link at the end you can hear the tune if you're not familiar with it.
My song is love unknown,
My Savior’s love to me;
Love to the loveless shown,
That they might lovely be.
O who am I,
That for my sake
My Lord should take
Frail flesh, and die?
My Savior’s love to me;
Love to the loveless shown,
That they might lovely be.
O who am I,
That for my sake
My Lord should take
Frail flesh, and die?
He came from His blest throne
Salvation to bestow;
But men made strange, and none
The longed-for Christ would know:
But oh, my Friend,
My Friend indeed,
Who at my need
His life did spend.
Salvation to bestow;
But men made strange, and none
The longed-for Christ would know:
But oh, my Friend,
My Friend indeed,
Who at my need
His life did spend.
Sometimes they strew His way,
And His sweet praises sing;
Resounding all the day
Hosannas to their King:
Then “Crucify!“
Is all their breath,
And for His death
They thirst and cry.
And His sweet praises sing;
Resounding all the day
Hosannas to their King:
Then “Crucify!“
Is all their breath,
And for His death
They thirst and cry.
They rise and needs will have
My dear Lord made away;
A murderer they save,
The Prince of life they slay.
Yet cheerful He
To suffering goes,
That He His foes
From thence might free.
My dear Lord made away;
A murderer they save,
The Prince of life they slay.
Yet cheerful He
To suffering goes,
That He His foes
From thence might free.
;In life, no house, no home
My Lord on earth might have;
In death, no friendly tomb,
But what a stranger gave.
What may I say?
Heav’n was His home;
But mine the tomb
Wherein He lay.
My Lord on earth might have;
In death, no friendly tomb,
But what a stranger gave.
What may I say?
Heav’n was His home;
But mine the tomb
Wherein He lay.
Here might I stay and sing,
No story so divine;
Never was love, dear King,
Never was grief like Thine.
This is my Friend,
In whose sweet praise
I all my days
Could gladly spend.
No story so divine;
Never was love, dear King,
Never was grief like Thine.
This is my Friend,
In whose sweet praise
I all my days
Could gladly spend.
Tuesday, 17 December 2013
Our Redeemer comes
A few days ago, Martin and I read Isaiah 63. It's one of several passages we've read this Advent season that describe God coming to redeem the Earth. They're not cosy pictures. Here God is described with robes splattered with blood, like the clothes of people treading grapes.
But, when I hear of what's been going on in the Democratic Republic of Congo, or think about women trafficked into sexual slavery, this is the God I long for.
Some people just have to be stopped. By far the best option is for them to repent and turn away from what they're doing. To them, God offers forgiveness and a new life. But not everyone chooses to accept that, and for those who won't, God is coming to destroy them.
Our Redeemer came at Christmas 2000 years ago. One day he will come again. And this second time, he'll come in power and will put the world to rights.
The Bible often speaks of the great and terrible day of the Lord. It will be a day of destruction, but it is the day that all the suffering people in the world long for, because it is the day when the power of their oppressors will be broken.
I find these truths uncomfortable. But when I reflect on "man's inhumanity to man", this day really is one that I long for.
Come, Lord Jesus.
But, when I hear of what's been going on in the Democratic Republic of Congo, or think about women trafficked into sexual slavery, this is the God I long for.
Some people just have to be stopped. By far the best option is for them to repent and turn away from what they're doing. To them, God offers forgiveness and a new life. But not everyone chooses to accept that, and for those who won't, God is coming to destroy them.
Our Redeemer came at Christmas 2000 years ago. One day he will come again. And this second time, he'll come in power and will put the world to rights.
The Bible often speaks of the great and terrible day of the Lord. It will be a day of destruction, but it is the day that all the suffering people in the world long for, because it is the day when the power of their oppressors will be broken.
I find these truths uncomfortable. But when I reflect on "man's inhumanity to man", this day really is one that I long for.
Come, Lord Jesus.
Cool spider
Monday, 16 December 2013
Sunday, 8 December 2013
Advent 2
Sunday, 1 December 2013
Friday, 29 November 2013
No-knead bread from frozen sourdough starter
A while back a kind friend gave me some sourdough starter, along with two lots of instructions to make no-knead bread with it. I love sourdough, plus it's good for me as it's low GI, so no-knead sourdough sounded like a winner!
Unfortunately, the instructions involved making bread frequently in order to keep the starter alive. I don't eat much bread, so that wasn't going to work for me. I was sure that the culture would survive freezing, but I couldn't find any information on how to go about freezing and reviving it.
After some experimentation, I seem to have come up with a method that works reliably:
* To feed, stir it (so you can see how much you have); add about twice this volume of flour and about this volume of water (i.e. equal parts by weight); stir to mix; then leave it. It should produce enough gas to double in volume by its next feeding, so your container should be big enough to cope with this.
The bread recipe I use is as follows:
Ingredients:
6 cups flour (1:1 wholemeal:white is nice)
1 T salt
3 T sugar
1/2 - 3/4 cup sourdough starter (revived from 1/4 cup frozen)
3 cups water
Method:
With thanks to http://www.sourdoughhome.com for helping me to understand sourdough better so that I could develop a reliable method for making my bread :-)
** In general I'm not much of a fan of paper towels, preferring washable reusable cloths instead. However, after gumming up our washing machine with the tiny scraps of dough that had accumulated from many months of washing teatowels used this way, I came to realise that using compostable paper towels is much more sustainable than wrecking our washing machine!
Unfortunately, the instructions involved making bread frequently in order to keep the starter alive. I don't eat much bread, so that wasn't going to work for me. I was sure that the culture would survive freezing, but I couldn't find any information on how to go about freezing and reviving it.
After some experimentation, I seem to have come up with a method that works reliably:
- Freeze your sourdough starter in 1/4 cup lots (I put 4 or 5 'blobs' of it on a silicone tray in the freezer, spaced well apart as my starter is quite runny). When they're frozen, store in a ziplock bag in the freezer. I don't know how long they keep like this, but definitely at least 6 months.
- A few days before you want to bake your bread, take one portion of starter out of the freezer and put in a bowl. Mix together 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 cup water and spread over the starter. Put it in a warm place (I use the hot water cupboard when the weather's cold) and cover loosely with a cloth. Don't cover it with a plate - the starter needs to 'breathe'.
- When the starter has thawed, stir it all together. Check from time to time. When it's risen and covered in bubbles (which will probably take 1-3 days) it's ready to either use or, if you need a large amount of starter, feed again. Further feedings should be at approximately 12-24 hour intervals.*
* To feed, stir it (so you can see how much you have); add about twice this volume of flour and about this volume of water (i.e. equal parts by weight); stir to mix; then leave it. It should produce enough gas to double in volume by its next feeding, so your container should be big enough to cope with this.
The bread recipe I use is as follows:
Ingredients:
6 cups flour (1:1 wholemeal:white is nice)
1 T salt
3 T sugar
1/2 - 3/4 cup sourdough starter (revived from 1/4 cup frozen)
3 cups water
Method:
- (at noon) In a large bowl combine flour, salt and sugar. Add starter then water and stir until blended; dough will be very soft and sticky. Cover bowl with paper towels**. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature (e.g. in the hot water cupboard).
- (9.15 am) Check the dough. If it hasn't risen much (or at all) and is quite runny under a crust/skin, stir in extra flour till it's only sticky - this generally takes around 1 1/2 cups flour.
- Work the dough a little, folding it on itself till it doesn't get any smaller (should take less than a minute), then separate the dough into two balls. Generously coat a baking tray with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put each dough ball on the tray and dust the tops liberally with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover loosely with paper towels** and let rise somewhere warm for at least 2 and preferably 5-6 hours.
- (3 pm) At least 20 minutes before you bake the dough, heat oven to its hottest setting - around 250°C. Put two heavy oven-safe containers (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex, pottery or silicone; anywhere from 5-cup capacity up is fine) in oven as it heats, along with a shallow pan with a cup or so of water in it.
- When dough is ready (3.30 pm), carefully remove pots from oven. Drop the risen dough balls flour side down into the containers; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Don't worry if they've barely risen at all - they should still rise during baking and be fine. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Bake uncovered 30 minutes. Turn onto a rack and leave to cool.
With thanks to http://www.sourdoughhome.com for helping me to understand sourdough better so that I could develop a reliable method for making my bread :-)
** In general I'm not much of a fan of paper towels, preferring washable reusable cloths instead. However, after gumming up our washing machine with the tiny scraps of dough that had accumulated from many months of washing teatowels used this way, I came to realise that using compostable paper towels is much more sustainable than wrecking our washing machine!
Sunday, 3 November 2013
BU Kofi
Martin and I are excited about a new project that the Baptist Union of churches in New Zealand is involved in. In partnership with the Baptist Union of Papua New Guinea, they are starting up a fair trade coffee growing and processing business. It will be established in the Baiyer Valley in the Highlands region of PNG and be called 'BU Kofi'.
You can read more about the project here*, but the things that appealed to us are:
* there's more information in the links in the orange 'recent articles' section at the right-hand side of the page. We also have a pdf about the project that contains some information that doesn't seem to be on the website. If you'd like me to email you a copy just put a request in the comments or email us here.
You can read more about the project here*, but the things that appealed to us are:
- the project has been initiated by people from Papua New Guinea (rather than foreigners);
- they see this project as being important in peace-building in an area that has seen a lot of conflict in recent times;
- their process has been guided by a World Bank report into the coffee industry in PNG, so they won't be making the same mistakes as have been made by others in the past (although of course they can make new mistakes and they still see this as a high risk endeavour).
* there's more information in the links in the orange 'recent articles' section at the right-hand side of the page. We also have a pdf about the project that contains some information that doesn't seem to be on the website. If you'd like me to email you a copy just put a request in the comments or email us here.
Friday, 25 October 2013
AppWriter Cloud
I've recently been really enjoying a tool Martin came back from Thailand with: AppWriter Cloud. One of his fellow vendors at the conference there was touting it and was kind enough to give me a free login for it. It's an add-on to the Chrome browser that reads web pages aloud - and it can read any web pages, including the pages within my Google Drive, meaning I can use it to read pdfs and other documents to me as well so long as I upload them there first.
It's a bit temperamental, and using it requires me to have a Windows virtual machine running as it doesn't work in Chromium, but I'm still delighted with it. After years of failing to get Orca* to work for me, something that works most of the time is fantastic :-) I find reading pretty hard work, even on a screen where I don't have to deal with holding the weight of a book, but this has suddenly made it a lot easier! Yay!!
* the Linux version of JAWS - the text to speech programme blind people generally use
It's a bit temperamental, and using it requires me to have a Windows virtual machine running as it doesn't work in Chromium, but I'm still delighted with it. After years of failing to get Orca* to work for me, something that works most of the time is fantastic :-) I find reading pretty hard work, even on a screen where I don't have to deal with holding the weight of a book, but this has suddenly made it a lot easier! Yay!!
* the Linux version of JAWS - the text to speech programme blind people generally use
Friday, 11 October 2013
Give a man a fish...
I was intrigued and excited by the story in 'Act one' of this recent This American Life episode. In it, Planet Money reporters looked into the work of GiveDirectly: a charity that, rather than giving poor people cows or seeds or other goods or training, simply gives them money.
The reporters went to a village in Kenya where the poorest residents had each received the equivalent of US$1000. From what I could gather, they were people living in a cash economy and this money was roughly what they would normally earn in a year. The reporters were keen to find out what that money had been spent on.
The villagers lived in thatch-roofed huts and the majority of them had used part of their money to replace the thatch with corrugated iron. Iron is not only more water-tight and much less hassle to maintain than thatch, over its 10 year life-span it also works out considerably cheaper (you have to buy special grass for thatch). With the remainder they did all kinds of things: mostly buying income-generating assets such as a cow or a motorbike, but not always.
The story that moved me the most was that of one man who spent the remaining money on a mattress. Previously he'd been sleeping on the dirt floor (maybe on some kind of a mat - I can't remember for sure), now he sleeps on an actual mattress. When he was asked why this was important to him, he said something like: "Before, I was just the image of a human, but now I am a human.". I was stunned.
It got me thinking, too. I've never heard of a charity that gives away mattresses. Cows or grain mills, yes: but not mattresses. Yet it was a mattress that this man wanted, and he wanted it because it gave him dignity. And surely that's really important?
It also made me realise my own racism. It keeps on popping up within me: racism.
When I heard about GiveDirectly, I was uncomfortable. It didn't seem right to just give these people money. I wasn't confident that they'd spend it well, whereas I was confident that a trustworthy aid agency would give them the right goods and training to really improve their lives. "Give a man a fish, feed him for a day" and all that.
However, a while ago when I heard that the New Zealand government was proposing to limit what certain beneficiaries could spend their money on, I wasn't very happy about it. Partly I was concerned on a practical level - how could WINZ know what was best for everyone in all their different circumstances? - and partly I was concerned that it would take dignity away from already vulnerable people.
Why had I thought it would be any different in Kenya?
In the This American Life story they also talked about how all the people in a nearby village had recived cattle from another charity. In the GiveDirect village, some people had chosen to buy cattle, but others had bought all kinds of other things instead - including the man who had more-or-less bought himself dignity. It seems that my concerns about the New Zealand welfare proposal may well have been valid, but I'm ashamed that I didn't apply the same respectful thinking to vulnerable people far off as I did to those in my own country...
NB If you don't want to listen to the whole This American Life story (it's 28 minutes long), you could listen to a 6 minute version on the Planet Money website or read an article about the investigation on the New York Times website.
The reporters went to a village in Kenya where the poorest residents had each received the equivalent of US$1000. From what I could gather, they were people living in a cash economy and this money was roughly what they would normally earn in a year. The reporters were keen to find out what that money had been spent on.
The villagers lived in thatch-roofed huts and the majority of them had used part of their money to replace the thatch with corrugated iron. Iron is not only more water-tight and much less hassle to maintain than thatch, over its 10 year life-span it also works out considerably cheaper (you have to buy special grass for thatch). With the remainder they did all kinds of things: mostly buying income-generating assets such as a cow or a motorbike, but not always.
The story that moved me the most was that of one man who spent the remaining money on a mattress. Previously he'd been sleeping on the dirt floor (maybe on some kind of a mat - I can't remember for sure), now he sleeps on an actual mattress. When he was asked why this was important to him, he said something like: "Before, I was just the image of a human, but now I am a human.". I was stunned.
It got me thinking, too. I've never heard of a charity that gives away mattresses. Cows or grain mills, yes: but not mattresses. Yet it was a mattress that this man wanted, and he wanted it because it gave him dignity. And surely that's really important?
It also made me realise my own racism. It keeps on popping up within me: racism.
When I heard about GiveDirectly, I was uncomfortable. It didn't seem right to just give these people money. I wasn't confident that they'd spend it well, whereas I was confident that a trustworthy aid agency would give them the right goods and training to really improve their lives. "Give a man a fish, feed him for a day" and all that.
However, a while ago when I heard that the New Zealand government was proposing to limit what certain beneficiaries could spend their money on, I wasn't very happy about it. Partly I was concerned on a practical level - how could WINZ know what was best for everyone in all their different circumstances? - and partly I was concerned that it would take dignity away from already vulnerable people.
Why had I thought it would be any different in Kenya?
In the This American Life story they also talked about how all the people in a nearby village had recived cattle from another charity. In the GiveDirect village, some people had chosen to buy cattle, but others had bought all kinds of other things instead - including the man who had more-or-less bought himself dignity. It seems that my concerns about the New Zealand welfare proposal may well have been valid, but I'm ashamed that I didn't apply the same respectful thinking to vulnerable people far off as I did to those in my own country...
NB If you don't want to listen to the whole This American Life story (it's 28 minutes long), you could listen to a 6 minute version on the Planet Money website or read an article about the investigation on the New York Times website.
Wednesday, 2 October 2013
Caring for onesself
In a recent issue of Meeting Place, (the magazine of ANZMES, the CFS support society for New Zealand) I was struck by three articles placed close together.
The first was by a Christian woman with whom I have corresponded over the years. She made a complete recovery from CFS a few years back and was writing here about the therapy through which God healed her: Mickel Therapy. It is a talking therapy and is based on three principles. In my words, they are:
Soon after this article came two more. One was from a woman who had recently been on a holiday on a cruise ship. While she was on the cruise she found her health greatly improved. She wondered if this might be because she wasn't pressuring herself to get things done, so when she returned to NZ she put in place some strategies to limit how hard she pushed herself day to day. Since doing so, her health has been much better than it's been in years. The other was from a man whose quality of life greatly improved once he learned to live within his limits and look after himself better.
It was both encouraging and scary to see what a difference learning to look after themselves had made in the lives of these three people.
It reminded me of something we'd been discussing in our Bible study group a few weeks earlier. We're studying Paul's letter to the Colossian church and, on the week in question, were looking at Colossians 3:5-17. In verses 12-15 Paul says:
How sad (and scary!) to think that the church, by taking passages like this in isolation and using them to encourage people to let others treat them badly, may actually be encouraging people to do something that could leave them significantly ill for years on end!
The first was by a Christian woman with whom I have corresponded over the years. She made a complete recovery from CFS a few years back and was writing here about the therapy through which God healed her: Mickel Therapy. It is a talking therapy and is based on three principles. In my words, they are:
- being honest/not being afraid of creating waves
- looking after your body and your needs
- not letting people abuse/manipulate you.
Soon after this article came two more. One was from a woman who had recently been on a holiday on a cruise ship. While she was on the cruise she found her health greatly improved. She wondered if this might be because she wasn't pressuring herself to get things done, so when she returned to NZ she put in place some strategies to limit how hard she pushed herself day to day. Since doing so, her health has been much better than it's been in years. The other was from a man whose quality of life greatly improved once he learned to live within his limits and look after himself better.
It was both encouraging and scary to see what a difference learning to look after themselves had made in the lives of these three people.
It reminded me of something we'd been discussing in our Bible study group a few weeks earlier. We're studying Paul's letter to the Colossian church and, on the week in question, were looking at Colossians 3:5-17. In verses 12-15 Paul says:
As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful.We talked about whether this meant that we should just let other people walk over us (something that I believe the church often encourages women, in particular, to do). However, we concluded that it probably actually meant an active and strong kind of love for other people: the kind of thing you can only do if you are deeply established in Christ (something that Paul was talking about in the previous chapter).
How sad (and scary!) to think that the church, by taking passages like this in isolation and using them to encourage people to let others treat them badly, may actually be encouraging people to do something that could leave them significantly ill for years on end!
Saturday, 14 September 2013
Tuesday, 10 September 2013
Big Fair Bake
Yesterday I submitted an entry in the Big Fair Bake: a baking competition that aims to promote Fair Trade. All entries must use at least two Fair Trade ingredients. Here's my entry photo and my answer to the competition question "why did you bake fair".
I learned that there is some forced labour and child labour in the sugar industry, but that in general the problem that Fair Trade is trying to solve is the precarious living sugarcane farmers make due to price fluctuations and the protectionist policies in and sugar dumping by some wealthy countries. I decided that forced labour and child labour bothered me, but that the other problems would be better addressed by interventions other than price floors for certain farmers. So it turned out that I did need to care about the provenance of our sugar!
I knew that, some years ago at least, Chelsea purchased all their sugar from Fiji. As that wasn't on the list of countries where people were being enslaved to produce sugar, I decided to find out if that was still the case. From their website, I found that they now actually purchase all their sugar from Queensland. So, I now needed to know whether the sugar farmers of Queensland were beneficiaries of subsidies or other anti-competitive practises. Turns out that they aren't. So, while I bought TradeAid sugar for my competition entry, in the future we won't be doing so.
This process has still changed our sugar purchasing practises, though. I'm no longer comfortable with buying 'home brand' or other sugars of unknown provenance: that sugar may have been farmed by slaves or children. From now on, our sugar will all be from Chelsea (just as, for similar reasons, we buy all our tea from Dilmah).
When I heard about the Big Fair Bake, it inspired me to research some new fair trade ingredients. I first started buying only fair trade cocoa and chocolate a few years ago when I learned that much of the world's cocoa is grown by child slaves. I didn't want anything to do with that! Later we switched over to buying all our coffee and bananas fair trade, too, as we didn't want poor people being abused so we could get our treats.Researching fair trade sugar was interesting. I went into this knowing very little about the sugar industry, but I decided that the time had come to find out whether people were being treated poorly to grow our sugar.
For the Big Fair Bake I decided to try out a new recipe: Earl Grey tea biscuits. The recipe uses icing sugar, butter, flour, salt, lemon zest and powdered Earl Grey tea leaves. I'd never bought Fair Trade tea or sugar before, but here was my opportunity to research it! I learned that there is forced labour and child labour in the sugar industry, just like for cocoa. No one seems to sell Fair Trade icing sugar, so we bought some ordinary sugar from Trade Aid, ground it to a powder in a spice grinder and added some cornflour. Voila! Fair Trade icing sugar. Unfortunately the supermarket was out of stock of Scarborough Fair Earl Grey tea so I used Trade Aid black tea instead. The lemon zest still gave them an Earl Grey flavour.
I learned that there is some forced labour and child labour in the sugar industry, but that in general the problem that Fair Trade is trying to solve is the precarious living sugarcane farmers make due to price fluctuations and the protectionist policies in and sugar dumping by some wealthy countries. I decided that forced labour and child labour bothered me, but that the other problems would be better addressed by interventions other than price floors for certain farmers. So it turned out that I did need to care about the provenance of our sugar!
I knew that, some years ago at least, Chelsea purchased all their sugar from Fiji. As that wasn't on the list of countries where people were being enslaved to produce sugar, I decided to find out if that was still the case. From their website, I found that they now actually purchase all their sugar from Queensland. So, I now needed to know whether the sugar farmers of Queensland were beneficiaries of subsidies or other anti-competitive practises. Turns out that they aren't. So, while I bought TradeAid sugar for my competition entry, in the future we won't be doing so.
This process has still changed our sugar purchasing practises, though. I'm no longer comfortable with buying 'home brand' or other sugars of unknown provenance: that sugar may have been farmed by slaves or children. From now on, our sugar will all be from Chelsea (just as, for similar reasons, we buy all our tea from Dilmah).
Sunday, 25 August 2013
Fun with Shadow :-)
Sarah recently got a kitten, a wee boy named Shadow. Today he was outside when Martin and I were blowing bubbles....
He jumped for them a few times, tried to pounce them, seemed confused when they kept on disappearing, and generally was a heap of fun to watch :-)
 |
| What's that?? |
 |
| No, really, what's that??!! |
 |
| They're everywhere... |
 |
| That one's floating! But if I investigated, I'd have to get wet :-( |
 |
| It's safer back here. |
 |
| But I really must go see! |
 |
| What IS it?! |
He jumped for them a few times, tried to pounce them, seemed confused when they kept on disappearing, and generally was a heap of fun to watch :-)
Friday, 23 August 2013
40 Maps That (Might) Help You Make Sense of the World
A friend recently drew this to my attention. I found instructive the maps of:
- where Google streetview is available (map 1),
- how much maternity leave is available in different countries (map 6),
- global population density (map 12) and
- alcohol consumption (map 14 - look where NZ ranks!)
Sunday, 18 August 2013
God is a person
Martin and I are currently reading the Old Testament book of Ezekiel. Two recent chapters have really struck me.
Ezekiel 16 is an extended metaphor of God's relationship with Israel. God describes how, when he found her, Israel was rejected and weak - like a newborn baby that no one was bothering to take care of. He took care of her, then later married her and gave her riches. In response, she rejected him: she gave the gifts he'd given her to other men (i.e. offered them to idols - idolatory seems to be a huge theme in Ezekiel) and was as promiscuous as a prostitute.
The chapter is full of pain and anger. God is no dispassionate force here: he is a person. Rejection hurts him. His wife taking other lovers makes him jealous and angry.
Then a few days later we came across Ezekiel 20, which starts like this:
I've been sobered by both these passages. I think I'm too casual in my relationship to God. I think of him as always being there for me - yet these passages suggest that that's not quite true. God is a loving God but also a jealous God. He's only available to those who are willing to give him his rightful place: who are willing to serve him exclusively and to trust him and not seek help from other sources.
These passages have made me see that I need to treat God like a lover not a service-provider!
Ezekiel 16 is an extended metaphor of God's relationship with Israel. God describes how, when he found her, Israel was rejected and weak - like a newborn baby that no one was bothering to take care of. He took care of her, then later married her and gave her riches. In response, she rejected him: she gave the gifts he'd given her to other men (i.e. offered them to idols - idolatory seems to be a huge theme in Ezekiel) and was as promiscuous as a prostitute.
The chapter is full of pain and anger. God is no dispassionate force here: he is a person. Rejection hurts him. His wife taking other lovers makes him jealous and angry.
Then a few days later we came across Ezekiel 20, which starts like this:
In the seventh year, in the fifth month, on the tenth day of the month, certain elders of Israel came to consult the Lord, and sat down before me. And the word of the Lord came to me: Mortal, speak to the elders of Israel, and say to them: Thus says the Lord God: Why are you coming? To consult me? As I live, says the Lord God, I will not be consulted by you.God goes on to explain that he is refusing to talk to the people because they have rejected him, have refused to come back to him and are even seeking help from other gods at the same time as coming to him.
I've been sobered by both these passages. I think I'm too casual in my relationship to God. I think of him as always being there for me - yet these passages suggest that that's not quite true. God is a loving God but also a jealous God. He's only available to those who are willing to give him his rightful place: who are willing to serve him exclusively and to trust him and not seek help from other sources.
These passages have made me see that I need to treat God like a lover not a service-provider!
Tuesday, 16 July 2013
Re-upholstered bathroom stool
Our bathroom stool was moving from 'looking tired' towards 'no longer functional'. The time had come to re-cover the seat!
I found some instructions that looked workable but I didn't have enough vinyl to do it without buying more. A check of TradeMe revealed that vinyl is surprisingly expensive. What to do?
Just then, Martin had to go out. He went outside then popped back in to pick up a piece of bicycle inner tube rubber, marvelling as he did so that they seemed to be an inexhaustible resource around here. Ah ha! I bet they'd make a nice wipeable cover for our stool :-)
A quick internet search revealed that others had had this idea before me. At first I thought I'd follow these instructions, but Martin thought a woven top would be nicer and I could always seal the edge with more inner tube, rather than metal. (Aren't the prices being charged for those commercially-available stools astonishing!!)
So, I set to and ripped off the old vinyl.
I pieced together some scraps of vinyl to protect the foam from any drips of water that might make it through the woven cover;
then wove strips of inner tube together in situ;
and finished it with a strip of inner tube around the sides.
All up it only took me two 'up times' (a bit under two hours) and was immensely satisfying! Photos of the whole process are on flickr.
I found some instructions that looked workable but I didn't have enough vinyl to do it without buying more. A check of TradeMe revealed that vinyl is surprisingly expensive. What to do?
Just then, Martin had to go out. He went outside then popped back in to pick up a piece of bicycle inner tube rubber, marvelling as he did so that they seemed to be an inexhaustible resource around here. Ah ha! I bet they'd make a nice wipeable cover for our stool :-)
A quick internet search revealed that others had had this idea before me. At first I thought I'd follow these instructions, but Martin thought a woven top would be nicer and I could always seal the edge with more inner tube, rather than metal. (Aren't the prices being charged for those commercially-available stools astonishing!!)
So, I set to and ripped off the old vinyl.
I pieced together some scraps of vinyl to protect the foam from any drips of water that might make it through the woven cover;
then wove strips of inner tube together in situ;
All up it only took me two 'up times' (a bit under two hours) and was immensely satisfying! Photos of the whole process are on flickr.
Monday, 8 July 2013
Saturday, 29 June 2013
I don't believe in Bible verses
Earlier this week, Martin and I came across this in our morning reading:
22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,
his mercies never come to an end;
23 they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
I know these words as part of a popular hymn/song: one that I have always taken as affirming that things will generally go well for me because of God's love for me. And yet look at where they show up: in the middle of one of Jeremiahs' laments following the destruction of Jerusalem.
Located there, those words are so very powerful. Jeremiah is trusting in God's steadfast love, mercy and faithfulness in the midst of destruction.
That song I know so well certainly contains Bible verses but, by taking them in isolation, it makes them sound as if they say something ever so much safer than the original.
I've come across so many examples like this in recent years and they all make me a bit angry. I no longer believe in Bible verses. You can find verses that say more or less anything. The truth of the Bible is contained in bigger chunks: paragraphs, chapters, books. Verses are just too small.
Located there, those words are so very powerful. Jeremiah is trusting in God's steadfast love, mercy and faithfulness in the midst of destruction.
That song I know so well certainly contains Bible verses but, by taking them in isolation, it makes them sound as if they say something ever so much safer than the original.
I've come across so many examples like this in recent years and they all make me a bit angry. I no longer believe in Bible verses. You can find verses that say more or less anything. The truth of the Bible is contained in bigger chunks: paragraphs, chapters, books. Verses are just too small.
Sewing gifts
From time to time I like to share photos of gifts I have made - like these booties I made for Martin's cousin's new baby.
However, there are other gifts I make that I don't tend to photograph. Here are some of those that I've been working on recently.
As I sew these things, I feel good about the gift I am giving to the people of Bangladesh: the gift of fertile farmland, of fresh drinking water, of children living to a healthy adulthood.
I'm sure I started mending things due to my natural frugality and aversion to waste. However, as I've learned about climate change I've come to realise that buying new stuff requires lots of energy and hence the burning of a lot of fossil fuels.
This past year, I was shocked to realise that our carbon footprint was significantly up on the previous audit year, even though it was down in most categories. The difference: we'd bought a similar amount of household goods as in previous years, but had tended to buy new rather than second hand. Since then, mending and buying second hand has taken on a new impetus. It's such a simple way to give other people a better chance in life and I'm grateful to have the skills, time and resources to be able to do it.
However, there are other gifts I make that I don't tend to photograph. Here are some of those that I've been working on recently.
 |
| blanket stitching to stabilise fraying edge of an old towel |
 |
| stitching together snapped vinyl strips on my belt |
I'm sure I started mending things due to my natural frugality and aversion to waste. However, as I've learned about climate change I've come to realise that buying new stuff requires lots of energy and hence the burning of a lot of fossil fuels.
This past year, I was shocked to realise that our carbon footprint was significantly up on the previous audit year, even though it was down in most categories. The difference: we'd bought a similar amount of household goods as in previous years, but had tended to buy new rather than second hand. Since then, mending and buying second hand has taken on a new impetus. It's such a simple way to give other people a better chance in life and I'm grateful to have the skills, time and resources to be able to do it.
Tuesday, 18 June 2013
Fantail
I've been enjoying watching this fellow in recent days as he flits about in our quince tree. He seems to be there most times I'm in the kitchen. He (or she) moves fast, though, so this was the best photo I could get!
New glasses
Saturday, 15 June 2013
Euthanasia
This week I listened to an Ideas programme from Radio New Zealand National on Euthanasia. The same arguments for euthanasia that I have heard elsewhere came up in the programme: it gives people control over their lives, and people should have a way out if they don't want to be a burden on their families. As a Christian, I wish to reject both those arguments: control of our lives (including their ending) belongs to God, and independence is not a virtue.
However Dr. Rodney Syme, the last speaker to be interviewed, made an intriguing point that was quite new to me. He is pro-euthanasia and has dealt with many patients who have wished to end their own lives. In his experience it is only the middle class and well-educated who want euthanasia - the poor don't seem to ask for it and he doesn't know why. I wonder if it is because control and independence are luxuries of the middle class? The poor have never been allowed to feel that they are in control of their lives, and they need to be interdependent in order to survive, so illness can't take from them things they never had anyway...
Dr Sinead Donnelly, who spoke from the anti-euthanasia perspective, also made a point that made me think. She talked about exploring with patients what makes their lives unbearable and working in her practice as a palliative care doctor to relieve the causes of their suffering so that they no longer want to die. It reminded me of my perspective on abortion: we need to create a world where people are able to carry their pregnancies to term, not just prevent them from ending them. What do we, as a society, need to do so that those with incurable illnesses feel able to go on with their lives?
As something of an aside, I was startled to realise that, were I to have a different attitude to my CFS, I would qualify for euthanasia under the legislation currently in the private members bill ballot in New Zealand. You have to be over the age of 18, have an untreatable (rather than simply terminal) condition and consider your suffering to be unbearable. Many people with CFS in New Zealand appear to meet that latter condition, too, even if I do not.
However Dr. Rodney Syme, the last speaker to be interviewed, made an intriguing point that was quite new to me. He is pro-euthanasia and has dealt with many patients who have wished to end their own lives. In his experience it is only the middle class and well-educated who want euthanasia - the poor don't seem to ask for it and he doesn't know why. I wonder if it is because control and independence are luxuries of the middle class? The poor have never been allowed to feel that they are in control of their lives, and they need to be interdependent in order to survive, so illness can't take from them things they never had anyway...
Dr Sinead Donnelly, who spoke from the anti-euthanasia perspective, also made a point that made me think. She talked about exploring with patients what makes their lives unbearable and working in her practice as a palliative care doctor to relieve the causes of their suffering so that they no longer want to die. It reminded me of my perspective on abortion: we need to create a world where people are able to carry their pregnancies to term, not just prevent them from ending them. What do we, as a society, need to do so that those with incurable illnesses feel able to go on with their lives?
As something of an aside, I was startled to realise that, were I to have a different attitude to my CFS, I would qualify for euthanasia under the legislation currently in the private members bill ballot in New Zealand. You have to be over the age of 18, have an untreatable (rather than simply terminal) condition and consider your suffering to be unbearable. Many people with CFS in New Zealand appear to meet that latter condition, too, even if I do not.
Wednesday, 5 June 2013
Educating donors
I thought I'd share my response to this post by Vinoth Ramachandra in Sri Lanka.
Hi Vinoth,
You raise good points but, like Carol, I've been wondering what I - a rich westerner - can do with them. Here are two thoughts:
1. Handled appropriately, child sponsorship itself can be an excellent way to educate donors. I'm currently reading a Psychology for a Better World by Niki Hare (available as a free download from the author's page here). The book looks at what psychological research can tell us about how to go about effecting social change. One point she makes is that people are more likely to respond generously to the plight of one person in need than to the plight of many people in need. Child sponsorship makes use of that psychological trait by giving a potential donor a single person to respond to.
Once the potential donor has responded in that way, the agency providing sponsored children is in a position to further educate them about development needs and where they can help. However, without the 'hook' of sponsorship, the agency would have been unlikely to be able to provide such education: child sponsorship gives them the entree into the life of the donor and can provide an educational opportunity.
I don't know about other Western countries, but the two main Christian agencies in New Zealand that provide child sponsorship (TEAR Fund and World Vision) both give donors the opportunity to support many other development and emergency relief projects and actively educate donors about them. For myself, as a young adult at a music festival I was moved to sponsor a child through one of these agencies. Over time, I came to understand more about development and have supported a variety of other projects instead.
2. The advantages of directly supporting indigenous development initiatives are obvious but, in practise, it's very difficult to do. I agree with Carol that it's difficult to find such initiatives - I suspect that the majority would, indeed, be impossible to find as it's not trivial for people with little access to resources to have a web presence.
However, in two cases I have come across indigenous initiatives that I have been keen to support. In the case of one (BEN Namibia - which provides bicycle ambulances etc. in Namibia) this wasn't too difficult: through their website I was able to make a credit card donation and could have set up monthly donations etc. just as I could for a New Zealand charity. In the other case (Al Nayzak - an organisation which provides extension education to gifted kids in Palestine) I needed to make an international bank transfer directly to their account. I was unable to do this at first as my NZ bank appeared to have no links to their Palestinian bank and, in the end, I had to transfer money into their Israeli account from which I gathered they would - with difficulty - be able to transfer the money to Palestine.
My ability to support both of these indigenous charities depended on them:
- having a web presence
- being able to communicate with me in English
- having access to the international banking system
This doesn't seem ideal!
I suspect that a better way for people such as myself to support indigenous initiatives is for NGOs in our own countries to take up a brokerage role. They can identify reputable charities overseas, bring them to our attention and then handle for us the communication and money transfer aspects. In New Zealand, TEAR Fund has taken on this role, and it sounds from Carol like TEAR Australia and Christian Aid do something similar.
Thanks again for your thought-provoking post.
--Heather :-)
Friday, 24 May 2013
Healing as a sign
Recently I've found myself in a number of conversations about why God hasn't healed various people. Implicit in the question is the assumption - an assumption I've shared - that the primary reason God would heal a person is to relieve their suffering. However, as Martin and I have been reading the New Testament book of John, that assumption has been challenged.
Firstly, in John 9 Jesus and his disciples encounter a man who was blind from birth. The disciples want to know why this has happened. Jesus tells them it is "so that the works of God might be displayed in him" - presumably by the healing Jesus then carries out.
We come across something similar in John 11. Firstly, Jesus hears that his dear friend Lazarus is very sick, at which he says: "This illness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it." A few days later, news reaches Jesus that Lazarus has died. Jesus passes this news on to his disciples with the words "Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe." He then goes to where Lazarus is and brings him back to life. This is followed by many people coming to believe in Jesus.
In both the other healings recorded in John (the healing of the official's son in John 4 and the healing of the lame man in John 5) the reason why the healing occured isn't mentioned.
Miracles in John are frequently referred to as 'signs'. All four of these healings certainly functioned as such: they pointed to Jesus' being the Messiah and people were polarized by them accordingly. Relief of suffering (either of the person themselves, or of those around them) seems to be at most a secondary purpose. Indeed, in the case of the healing of Lazarus, Jesus was pleased that he hadn't arrived before Lazarus died - even though he had compassion on his sisters for their suffering - because it made a better sign.
So, in wondering why God hasn't healed various people, at the very least we should consider whether their healing would be useful to God as a sign, rather than only thinking about the suffering their ailment causes.
This all seems rather 'cold', though. Doesn't God care about the suffering caused by illness and disability? That seems unlikely - but it does seem possible that he cares about them less than we do!
Consider the story of the paralyzed man whose friends lowered him through the roof to Jesus (Mark 2). When the man arrived at his feet, Jesus didn't heal him - instead, he said "Son, your sins are forgiven". Only when the Pharisees challenged his authority to forgive sins - something that, after all, only God could do - did Jesus heal him. Jesus seems to have cared a lot more about the man's sinfulness than his disability. He seems to have used the healing primarily as a means of demonstrating that he really did have the power to forgive sins. Similarly in John, being recognised as the Messiah seems to have been much more important to Jesus than actually healing people's physical illnesses.
I think that my/our questions about why God hasn't healed people may actually show up a significant problem in my/our understanding. Bad as illness and disability are, sin - and being out of relationship with God - is a much more serious problem. I don't think I remember that anything like enough!
Firstly, in John 9 Jesus and his disciples encounter a man who was blind from birth. The disciples want to know why this has happened. Jesus tells them it is "so that the works of God might be displayed in him" - presumably by the healing Jesus then carries out.
We come across something similar in John 11. Firstly, Jesus hears that his dear friend Lazarus is very sick, at which he says: "This illness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it." A few days later, news reaches Jesus that Lazarus has died. Jesus passes this news on to his disciples with the words "Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe." He then goes to where Lazarus is and brings him back to life. This is followed by many people coming to believe in Jesus.
In both the other healings recorded in John (the healing of the official's son in John 4 and the healing of the lame man in John 5) the reason why the healing occured isn't mentioned.
Miracles in John are frequently referred to as 'signs'. All four of these healings certainly functioned as such: they pointed to Jesus' being the Messiah and people were polarized by them accordingly. Relief of suffering (either of the person themselves, or of those around them) seems to be at most a secondary purpose. Indeed, in the case of the healing of Lazarus, Jesus was pleased that he hadn't arrived before Lazarus died - even though he had compassion on his sisters for their suffering - because it made a better sign.
So, in wondering why God hasn't healed various people, at the very least we should consider whether their healing would be useful to God as a sign, rather than only thinking about the suffering their ailment causes.
This all seems rather 'cold', though. Doesn't God care about the suffering caused by illness and disability? That seems unlikely - but it does seem possible that he cares about them less than we do!
Consider the story of the paralyzed man whose friends lowered him through the roof to Jesus (Mark 2). When the man arrived at his feet, Jesus didn't heal him - instead, he said "Son, your sins are forgiven". Only when the Pharisees challenged his authority to forgive sins - something that, after all, only God could do - did Jesus heal him. Jesus seems to have cared a lot more about the man's sinfulness than his disability. He seems to have used the healing primarily as a means of demonstrating that he really did have the power to forgive sins. Similarly in John, being recognised as the Messiah seems to have been much more important to Jesus than actually healing people's physical illnesses.
I think that my/our questions about why God hasn't healed people may actually show up a significant problem in my/our understanding. Bad as illness and disability are, sin - and being out of relationship with God - is a much more serious problem. I don't think I remember that anything like enough!
Tuesday, 21 May 2013
Fun with hessian
Late last year I acquired a coffee bean sack.
Here are some of the things I've made from it :-)
 | ||||
| Padded felt picture of a kokako for my niece |
 |
| Padded felt kowhai picture for a good friend |
Coffee bean sacks are huge! All of this has used just over half of one side of it!
Saturday, 4 May 2013
Sweatshop clothing
At our Bible study group today we got talking about the collapse of the sweatshop clothing factories in Bangladesh and about how we can avoid supporting such factories. It's a topic Martin and I have been wrestling with for some years: we want to buy products from the Majority World in order to support the employment of desperately needy people; however, we'd rather buy from producers who treat their workers well, if at all possible.
Unfortunately, finding clothing produced in the Majority World in decent conditions is really difficult. It's easiest to find baby clothing, then childrenswear, then womenswear: menswear is next to impossible. For adults, T-shirts seem to be the easiest things to find, then really dressy clothes: everyday stuff is hard to source, as is underwear.
With those caveats, here's a list of all the retailers I've been able to locate that sell adult clothing:
T-shirts
Marketplacers (an initiative of the Baptist Union here in NZ)
Liminal
Micah clothing
Womenswear only
Chandichowk (in the UK but ship internationally)
Menswear only
From the Source (in the UK but ship internationally)
Mens and womenswear
Spirals of Abundance (in the UK but ship internationally)
Eternal creation (in Nepal, ship internationally)
Kowtow clothing (mostly womenswear)
Nomads clothing (in the UK, mostly womenswear)
People tree (in the UK but ship internationally)
There are also various people who sell fair trade clothing on Amazon.
Note that we've never actually bought any fair trade clothing other than T-shirts and underwear ourselves. When we need new clothes, firstly we'll look to see if we can buy them secondhand. If that fails, we see if we can find anything fair trade that we like and can afford (most of the fair trade clothing is super-expensive). If we can't, we then just buy something 'normal'. At that point, we'd rather buy something that gave a poor person a horrible job in a sweatshop than buy something made in New Zealand that does the sweatshop workers out of employment altogether.
In addition, at our study group I mentioned an article reflecting on the building collapse in Bangladesh and how one Christian woman is trying to respond to it. She includes a few links to information about fairly traded goods, although a cursory look at them seemed to suggest they mostly dealt with food rather than clothing.
Unfortunately, finding clothing produced in the Majority World in decent conditions is really difficult. It's easiest to find baby clothing, then childrenswear, then womenswear: menswear is next to impossible. For adults, T-shirts seem to be the easiest things to find, then really dressy clothes: everyday stuff is hard to source, as is underwear.
With those caveats, here's a list of all the retailers I've been able to locate that sell adult clothing:
T-shirts
Marketplacers (an initiative of the Baptist Union here in NZ)
Liminal
Micah clothing
Womenswear only
Chandichowk (in the UK but ship internationally)
Menswear only
From the Source (in the UK but ship internationally)
Mens and womenswear
Spirals of Abundance (in the UK but ship internationally)
Eternal creation (in Nepal, ship internationally)
Kowtow clothing (mostly womenswear)
Nomads clothing (in the UK, mostly womenswear)
People tree (in the UK but ship internationally)
There are also various people who sell fair trade clothing on Amazon.
Note that we've never actually bought any fair trade clothing other than T-shirts and underwear ourselves. When we need new clothes, firstly we'll look to see if we can buy them secondhand. If that fails, we see if we can find anything fair trade that we like and can afford (most of the fair trade clothing is super-expensive). If we can't, we then just buy something 'normal'. At that point, we'd rather buy something that gave a poor person a horrible job in a sweatshop than buy something made in New Zealand that does the sweatshop workers out of employment altogether.
In addition, at our study group I mentioned an article reflecting on the building collapse in Bangladesh and how one Christian woman is trying to respond to it. She includes a few links to information about fairly traded goods, although a cursory look at them seemed to suggest they mostly dealt with food rather than clothing.
Sunday, 21 April 2013
In God's hands
Here's something I shared in church this morning:
Good morning.
For those of you who don't know me, my name is Heather, I'm married to Martin and we live with Sarah.
I have a medical condition called chronic fatigue syndrome. It's a somewhat controversial condition. Some medical people think that people with this condition have become convinced that they can't do things that they really can do - so to get better they need someone to make them do things that they think they can't manage. Other medical people think that CFS people have got something wrong in how with how their body works, and that pushing them to do things they can't do actually makes their health a lot worse. Probably they're both right - some people with these symptoms will get better if you push them, other people will get worse. For myself, I've had this condition for 10 years and I know that I get worse if I push myself to do more.
Anyway, last week I went to see some specialists about a different problem. While I was there, they kept on talking about my fatigue and trying to persuade me that I needed to push myself. They implied that my other problem wouldn't get better if I didn't do so. I got really angry and upset: they weren't specialists in this area, I've been properly diagnosed with chronic fatigue by people who know about the condition - why didn't they just mind their own business!!! And I was scared - I really wanted help with my other problem, but they didn't seem willing to help me unless I was willing to do things I knew would make me really sick.
After stewing about this for a day or two, I realised I needed to take it to God.
I started praying and acknowledged that I was in His hands - He is the one who is my real help, not the medical people. As I spent time with God, I realised something else. I was partly upset because I felt that the attitude of the specialists I'd seen meant that I might not be able to get any help from them with my other problem, but I realised that that wasn't the main reason. The main thing that actually upset me was that they had offended my pride.
I believe that I'm a strong person who's coping very well with a really challenging illness and I'm proud of that. When they seemed to see me instead as someone who's all scared and weak, I was offended and angry. When I realised that, I had to repent of that. Repent of the pride and also repent of putting my self-worth in their good opinion, rather than in who I am in God.
Having done that, God showed me something else. The other reason I was so upset was because, whenever something like this happens, I have a sneaky fear that maybe they're right: maybe there isn't anything really wrong with me and I've brought all my problems on myself by just being too scared to push myself. Ten years of my life spent mostly bed ridden for no good reason is a pretty scary thought!! So I spent some time talking to God about that one, too - just acknowledging that fear and allowing myself to be reminded that, whether or not my CFS is 'real', it's God who's in charge of my life.
After taking all that to God and talking it over with Him I was finally calm again. I may not be able to get the help I want from these specialists, but I know that I'm safe in God's hands never-the-less. Whenever the upsetness has started to come back, I've reminded myself of that.
Thank you.
Sunday, 14 April 2013
Being human
Last week Martin and I listened to a lecture by N.T. Wright on 'Being Human'. I was intrigued by his concept of Jesus as the most 'real' human there ever was - living in the world in the way we were always meant to. I've been chewing over that ever since.
If you'd like to listen to it it's available here. It's a bit over an hour long and we found it very engaging. The whole blog that we found it on (from Compass) is also well worth a poke around :-)
If you'd like to listen to it it's available here. It's a bit over an hour long and we found it very engaging. The whole blog that we found it on (from Compass) is also well worth a poke around :-)
Thursday, 11 April 2013
Faith and deeds
Recently our Bible study group was looking at James 2:14-26. It starts out with:
Martin and I have recently started reading the gospel of John and yesterday we came across another example of this kind of deed. In John 4:43-53 a powerful man comes to Jesus and begs him to come and heal his dying son. Instead of going with him, Jesus simply says "go, your son will live". Without protest, the man goes: his action demonstrates his faith in Jesus and his words.
Martin and I are both priveleged to have examples of this kind of faith in our own parents. In different ways, they have allowed God's claims on them to totally shape how they have lived their lives: their lives show what they believe. We are grateful to have been raised by such people.
What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds?it then continues with what I've always taken as an example of 'deeds':
Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?however, it's not clear from the text that that's actually what it's an example of: instead, it may simply be an example of words and actions not matching up. After all, the text simply continues by saying:
In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.This interpretation is borne out by the two explicit examples of 'deeds' the passage does give. I found these two examples quite obscure until Martin realised that we were thinking of the wrong kinds of deeds. I was thinking that the 'deeds' being talked about would be 'good works' - feeding the hungry etc. The examples given weren't like that at all: they were Abraham offering his son as a sacrifice to God, and Rahab helping the Israelites who were besieging her city. Martin realised that what links these two stories is that the people in them are acting like God is God (indeed in Rahab's case, she is also acting like her enemy's God was more powerful than her own). The point being made is not that their faith was complemented by good works: instead, James is saying that their faith was shown to be real by the fact that they acted on it.
Martin and I have recently started reading the gospel of John and yesterday we came across another example of this kind of deed. In John 4:43-53 a powerful man comes to Jesus and begs him to come and heal his dying son. Instead of going with him, Jesus simply says "go, your son will live". Without protest, the man goes: his action demonstrates his faith in Jesus and his words.
Martin and I are both priveleged to have examples of this kind of faith in our own parents. In different ways, they have allowed God's claims on them to totally shape how they have lived their lives: their lives show what they believe. We are grateful to have been raised by such people.
Thursday, 28 March 2013
Healing
Earlier this month I noticed a letter in the newspaper of the New Zealand Baptist churches. In it, a man explained that he had been a Christian for 50 years when he experienced significant complications after a routine operation. He prayed for healing and other members of his church also prayed for him. He wasn't healed (although his problem was later resolved by further surgery) and that led him to conclude that God was indifferent to his suffering. He still believes in God but no longer worships or follows Him.
I felt that, due to my own medical history, I had an unusual authority to reply to this letter. It's taken a me a few weeks to do so and I've missed the deadline for getting it into April's edition. Hopefully it'll appear there in May. Here is what I have written:
I felt that, due to my own medical history, I had an unusual authority to reply to this letter. It's taken a me a few weeks to do so and I've missed the deadline for getting it into April's edition. Hopefully it'll appear there in May. Here is what I have written:
I was deeply saddened by D. S.'s letter in the March issue of The Baptist.
Like Mr. S., I am afflicted by a medical condition that significantly restricts my life. For the last ten years I have been largely bed-bound, living with constant pain and also 'brain fog' that makes it hard for me to think straight. All this began when I was only 26 years old: I often feel like my life has been stolen from me. And yet, unlike Mr. S., I still believe in a loving God.
Why?
I believe God can and does heal people. I also believe God never promised to heal His followers: He is under no obligation to heal me. However, God has promised to be with us in our suffering and I can testify that He has been with me in mine. I know through the Holy Spirit in me that He loves me and delights in me. His presence in me sustains me on this difficult path. However, it seems He has other priorities than making me well and that's OK: He's the boss.
I believe God's imagination is larger than my own. I long for the healing of my body and mind. God aches to heal not just me, not even all Christians, but everyone and everything: all of Creation. Since the Fall, everyone and everything has been "groaning" and "in bondage to decay" (Romans 8:18-30). My suffering and that of Mr. S. are examples of this. In some cases, God chooses to remove an illness from the life of an individual; however, what He's mostly working on is removing suffering and decay from His creation altogether. What a glorious and wonderful prospect! We truly can look forward to a time when God "will wipe every tear from [our] eyes and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain." (Revelation 21:4)
Mr. S. assumes that, as God didn't heal him, He cannot be all of omniscient, omnipotent and caring. Yet God is all of these things. It's just that His love is bigger than Mr. S. has been led to expect - not smaller.
The idea that God will remove our suffering so long as we pray and have faith is a dangerous and unbiblical lie. I am so sad that Mr. S. has been taught that view and understand why he has rejected it. I pray that he will encounter and accept a more Biblical view on these matters and turn back to God before it is too late.
Neighbours Day
On the weekend, our street celebrated Neighbours Day. It was the third time we've done it, and definitely the best. A few more people came and most people stayed a lot longer than in previous years. I think the bouncy castle and face painting had a big impact on that: drawing the kids out of their houses, bringing their mums and dads with them :-) I had a good catchup with someone I hadn't spoken to since last year as well as some general chitchat. It's nice to gradually recognise more of the people I see on the street :-)
Saturday, 16 March 2013
Kingfisher
Last week we spent a day staying with friends in the next street - escaping the sounds of chainsaws next door. In the afternoon, a flash of movement caught my eye. My subconscious promptly identified the bird that settled on the neighbouring roof as a kingfisher; my conscious mind was doubtful. Surely kingfishers don't have such stunning irridescent plumage?! Then it turned and showed me its distinctive beak. No doubt about it: the bird was definitely a kingfisher!
It was a wonder to behold. I know I only felt that way because my life is so restricted and because it's years since I saw my last kingfisher. But that doesn't make it any less of a wonder :-)
It was a wonder to behold. I know I only felt that way because my life is so restricted and because it's years since I saw my last kingfisher. But that doesn't make it any less of a wonder :-)
Saturday, 2 March 2013
Ten years on
Last Monday was the 10th anniversary of my developing CFS.
It was a curious day. Leading up to it I was very aware of it looming ahead of me, and yet whenever I tried to think about what the day meant to me I couldn't: my mind shied away from the topic.
I sincerely believe that I have a remarkably good quality of life, despite my illness. In may ways, I'm pleased to be ten years down the track. Those early days were so scary and baffling; these days I'm mostly dealing with the familiar.
And yet I do so wish life was different.
I grieve for the lost possibilities - especially for the children I most likely will never have. I'm sick of hurting all the time, of rarely having the mental energy to have a decent conversation, of having to push through mud every move I make, of failing to understand so much of what I hear. I'm sick of having to be so disciplined. I'm sick of feeling exhausted all the time. I miss human company and generally being out and about in the world. I so wish I had a body and a mind that worked.
And I wish it was more OK to say these things.
I recently listened to a radio programme about the new Disability Studies course being offered at Otago University. As the lecturer talked about negative stereotypes people have about disability, I came to think that she was conflating two quite different things: statements/acts that suggest people with disabilities are of little value and statements/acts that suggest that life with a disability is harder than life without one. For example, she thought it was bad that people had sent sympathy cards to the parents of a baby born with Downs Syndrome. But what is wrong with coming alongside parents in their grief at the loss of the kind of future they'd imagined for their child? That child is likely to have a much more difficult path through life than their peers - both because of their disability and because of society's attitude to it - and I wish it was more acceptable to say so!
Sadly, in the church people with disabilities experience another kind of pressure that again makes it hard for us to acknowledge how hard our lives are. The church doesn't enjoin us to feel good about our disabilities but it does exert considerable pressure on us to endure them cheerfully - to be like Cousin Helen in the What Katy Did books, rather than like Katy herself in the early months after her accident.
So, on this anniversary, I wanted to tell some of the bits of my story I don't often tell: the bits about how hard it is, rather than the bits about how, on balance, it's OK. I guess the fact that I'm posting this nearly a week after the actual anniversary tells part of that story, too, It's hard having a head that takes more than a week to put ideas together coherently, and fingers that struggle to type, even when I am using my mouse-typing programme...
It was a curious day. Leading up to it I was very aware of it looming ahead of me, and yet whenever I tried to think about what the day meant to me I couldn't: my mind shied away from the topic.
I sincerely believe that I have a remarkably good quality of life, despite my illness. In may ways, I'm pleased to be ten years down the track. Those early days were so scary and baffling; these days I'm mostly dealing with the familiar.
And yet I do so wish life was different.
I grieve for the lost possibilities - especially for the children I most likely will never have. I'm sick of hurting all the time, of rarely having the mental energy to have a decent conversation, of having to push through mud every move I make, of failing to understand so much of what I hear. I'm sick of having to be so disciplined. I'm sick of feeling exhausted all the time. I miss human company and generally being out and about in the world. I so wish I had a body and a mind that worked.
And I wish it was more OK to say these things.
I recently listened to a radio programme about the new Disability Studies course being offered at Otago University. As the lecturer talked about negative stereotypes people have about disability, I came to think that she was conflating two quite different things: statements/acts that suggest people with disabilities are of little value and statements/acts that suggest that life with a disability is harder than life without one. For example, she thought it was bad that people had sent sympathy cards to the parents of a baby born with Downs Syndrome. But what is wrong with coming alongside parents in their grief at the loss of the kind of future they'd imagined for their child? That child is likely to have a much more difficult path through life than their peers - both because of their disability and because of society's attitude to it - and I wish it was more acceptable to say so!
Sadly, in the church people with disabilities experience another kind of pressure that again makes it hard for us to acknowledge how hard our lives are. The church doesn't enjoin us to feel good about our disabilities but it does exert considerable pressure on us to endure them cheerfully - to be like Cousin Helen in the What Katy Did books, rather than like Katy herself in the early months after her accident.
So, on this anniversary, I wanted to tell some of the bits of my story I don't often tell: the bits about how hard it is, rather than the bits about how, on balance, it's OK. I guess the fact that I'm posting this nearly a week after the actual anniversary tells part of that story, too, It's hard having a head that takes more than a week to put ideas together coherently, and fingers that struggle to type, even when I am using my mouse-typing programme...
Saturday, 16 February 2013
Holiday in Whangarei
Martin and I have just got home from a week in Whangarei visitng his parents. I made it on one outing there: to the A.H. Reed Memorial Park - a patch of forest that includes a boardwalk up near the tree canopy! It was lovely being there. Martin also went on a few walks with Dad, including up their local hill - Parahaki.
Photos of those outings, as well as a few from around the house, are up on flickr. There's also a kind of panorama from the canopy boardwalk here. If you click on the photo it'll scan around the panorama, but using the mouse you can also look up to the sky and down to the ground. That was Martin's first go using the fancy panorama feature on his new phone :-)
Incidentally, I remain quite stunned at how well I'm doing since I started taking the ribose back in August. I've recently reduced my dose (standard advice is that you should do this after about 4 weeks but it was never the right time for me to do this until a week or two back...) and my energy levels have still remained high. At least, high for me, that is!
Photos of those outings, as well as a few from around the house, are up on flickr. There's also a kind of panorama from the canopy boardwalk here. If you click on the photo it'll scan around the panorama, but using the mouse you can also look up to the sky and down to the ground. That was Martin's first go using the fancy panorama feature on his new phone :-)
Incidentally, I remain quite stunned at how well I'm doing since I started taking the ribose back in August. I've recently reduced my dose (standard advice is that you should do this after about 4 weeks but it was never the right time for me to do this until a week or two back...) and my energy levels have still remained high. At least, high for me, that is!
Friday, 1 February 2013
Kiwi cards
I made the above cards yesterday for a couple of overseas friends. I'm really pleased with them :-)
Friday, 25 January 2013
The desire to be heard
I've just listened to the BBC documentary Voices from the Ghetto, in which Polish Jews describe their daily lives in the Warsaw ghetto during World War II. It's a sad account of what people can do to other people, but also a striking example of the strength of the human desire to be heard: to know that others know that you exist.
The texts read by actors in the documentary are a tiny fraction of the systematic records left by Jews of ghetto: recorded by individuals, copied in triplicate by a typing pool and periodically buried in metal cans to (hopefully) be found by posterity. Such committment to the telling of their story!
In a funny way, it reminds me of Facebook.* Why else do people record the minutiae of their lives (or, indeed, post increasingly outrageous pictures of themselves) if not from a longing to be seen and heard? They may not have such a terrible or important story to tell but still, I hear echoes between the two in that common desire to be seen, heard and known.
* or, at least, Facebook as stereotypically used by teenagers...
The texts read by actors in the documentary are a tiny fraction of the systematic records left by Jews of ghetto: recorded by individuals, copied in triplicate by a typing pool and periodically buried in metal cans to (hopefully) be found by posterity. Such committment to the telling of their story!
In a funny way, it reminds me of Facebook.* Why else do people record the minutiae of their lives (or, indeed, post increasingly outrageous pictures of themselves) if not from a longing to be seen and heard? They may not have such a terrible or important story to tell but still, I hear echoes between the two in that common desire to be seen, heard and known.
* or, at least, Facebook as stereotypically used by teenagers...
The greatest commandment
A recent post on Paul Windsor's blog referred back to his 2008 reflections on David Kinnaman's book Unchurched. According to research from The Barna Group, non-church-going American 16-29 year-olds perceive the Church as:
It reminds me of my Saturday morning walks to my local Farmers Market when I lived in Pittsburgh. En route, I passed by an abortion clinic. A Christian group regularly picketed that clinic and aggressively accosted anyone they suspected might be trying to get to it. I so hated the intimidating manner of the people who accosted me that sometimes I walked a much longer way around just to avoid them. In no way did I get the impression that these were people who cared about me or my (possible!) unborn child: I just felt that they wanted to obstruct and oppose me and I wanted to get away.
It makes me really sad.
* see points 3., 6., probably 5. and, to an extent, 2.
- too hypocritical;
- too focused on getting converts (outsiders 'feel like targets rather than people' p29);
- too antihomosexual (for a staggering 91% of respondents - as 'hostility towards gays has become virtually synonymous with Christian faith' p92);
- too sheltered ('Christians seem aloof and insulated', p124);
- too political ('a movement that was bursting with energy to spread good news to people 20 years ago - has been exchanged for an aggressive political strategy that demonises segments of society', p153);
- too judgmental.
It reminds me of my Saturday morning walks to my local Farmers Market when I lived in Pittsburgh. En route, I passed by an abortion clinic. A Christian group regularly picketed that clinic and aggressively accosted anyone they suspected might be trying to get to it. I so hated the intimidating manner of the people who accosted me that sometimes I walked a much longer way around just to avoid them. In no way did I get the impression that these were people who cared about me or my (possible!) unborn child: I just felt that they wanted to obstruct and oppose me and I wanted to get away.
It makes me really sad.
* see points 3., 6., probably 5. and, to an extent, 2.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
-
Ages ago, a foraging blog I used to read taught me that kawakawa plants, not only produce leaves that make yummy tea: the plants come in mal... -
For Christmas, I wanted to make Martin a chair that he could use when he goes to the cricket or goes camping. He's already got a self-i... -
I've recently learned something super-cool: all citrus leaves are edible! I've long known that kaffir lime leaves are edible (and ...