Saturday, April 29, 2006

He gives us Himself

Doing an essay on Job (his friends theological worldview to be exact) and came across this quote by Haddon Robinson:
"When we go to God and ask Him why bad things are happening, He doesn't give us an explanation; He gives us Himself."

(Quoted by Littleton in a book by Zuck)

Sunday, April 16, 2006

Resurrection

As I ponder the resurrection (interestingly while I continue to unpack/make sense of my newish bedroom!) today ... Steve's word have much meaning for me. Have a read.

Particularly these words:

"It struck me this week that the 4 gospel Resurrection stories are totally lacking in any Old Testament Jewish quotations. And that's in absolute contrast to the 4 gospel stories of Jesus crucifixion. They're packed full of Old Testament Jewish quotations.

Full of Old Testament Scripture: Empty of Old Testament Scripture."

and

"Which makes me wonder, when I meet people who reckon they've got Christianity all sorted, all nice and tidy, well wrapped and beautifully packaged,
makes we wonder if they’ve really met Jesus, this untidy disturber of people's lives."

Thanks Steve!

1 Peter

Reading through 1 Peter at the moment and these words from Chapter 3 really struck me this morning:
your beauty ... should be that of your inner spirit, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit.
... do not give way to fear.

How often as people, women particularly in our own way, do we give way to fear? And so often it gives way to something quite different to the "unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit".
I pray that I would grow, that we would grow, in our ability to not give way to fear so that we might grow in our being people who have the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Remaking Book

Talking of books - I've been re-miss!

The Solace community which I'm a part of have released a book called "Remaking". For several years now we have been exploring spiritual disciplines, originally based on Renovare material by Richard Foster, and shaped for us heavily too on the work of Dallas Willard. As we lived in the six traditions that Foster talks of, they became our own more and we began to speak of them as "Ways" of Remaking the World. So this book discusses what it means to be involved in the Remaking the World, Transforming Grace and then it has a chapter on each of the 7 Ways that shape our community (with two different perspectives on this way, a personal story and various ways to engage in that way all listed).

I reckon lots of people and communities would benefit from being shaped by this book - and we would love to see our it shapes you and how we can learn from the way that you engage with this material and how you are engaging with similar practices.

The book is $30 (Australian) and $3.50 for postage in Australia; $12 for postage to most other places. Let me know if you'd like a copy (comment or email me at barbd@suvic.org.au or email Stu)

Atonement

Sometime in the last week I came across something that lead me to investigate the book "Atonement for a 'Sinless' Society" by Alan Mann. I borrowed it from the library at college and I'm going to make my way through it a bit this week, in the midst of Holy Week.
It looks great - looking at the way that our understnading of self today is one around "shame" rather than "sin" and that the way we understand and talk about atonement needs to address the issues of shame.
I'll try and blog a bit as I read.

Monday, April 10, 2006

Passover

Running Passover on Thursday night with a friend from Solace. We've been working on the litrugy that we are going to use - we've done it together 3 years in a row now and we work on the liturgy every year; it's part of the enjoyment and discipline for us. If you want a copy of itlet me know: barbd at suvic dot org dot au.

Friday, April 07, 2006

Meme

Ages ago Dave tagged me and it's been sitting in my inbox to do ever since, since it can't leave my inbox until I act on it, now's the time!!!

Four Jobs I've had:
Telemarketer (yep I will admit it!)
Children and Families Worker
Assistant Librarian
Missions Co-ordinator

Four movies I can watch over and over:
(as people who know me, know there aren't that many!, a better question is movies I can go to sleep over and over in front of! and I'm doing a loose understanding of movies)
Pride and Prejudice (BBC or any other variety)
Brides of Christ
Dead Poets Society
I'm sure I'll be able to with Narnia

Four Places I've lived:
Alyangula
Hurstville
Woodend
Northcote

Four TV shows I love to watch:
(well TV, what's that? but have loved to watch)
A Country Practice
Mad About You
Six Feet Under
Friends

Four Places I've been:
Vanuatu
Mallacoota
Kakadu
Broken Hill

Four Favourite dishes:
Pad Thai
Fish ... and veges ... and chips
Spag Bog (need to say that 'cause my friend Tracy teases me about it frequently and then feeds it to me!)
Roasted Tomato Soup

Four Sites I visit daily:
Bloglines
SU Mail Site
... often google
... mmm bank

Four Favourite drinks:
latte
ginger beer
mango lassi
chai

Four Places I would rather be:
Byron Bay
Tidal River
Yarra Valley
Station Street, Fairfield (well I'm fairly close but not quite!)

Transport:
various work cars: Ford, Magna Wagon, Getz
bus
tram
feet

Four people I'm tagging:
I reckon I'm so late - if you've not done it and you'd like to - please consider yourself tagged.

:)

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Posting

Sorry about the lack of posting on this site - it's just felt like too much effort to post recently; not really sure why but I've just gone with it.

Life's quite good in general - it's been a busy year so far in many ways, but partly because I'm choosing to have time out to relax :)

Just recently been to Qld for an SU National Conference which was I enjoyed and was useful, and either side of that had some time off. Beforehand hung out with some other staff (and some other friends) and afterwards stayed with friends in Brisbane. Lovely, relaxing and very much what I needed.

Have come back to Melbourne, into the house I moved into half a week before I went away, and I've broken out in some mystery disease, that's unlikely to be chickenbox (which is what I was diagnosed with) and unlikely to be scabies (which is what one of my colleagues has been diagnosed with). 3 staff who all went to the same conference with the same symptoms, baffling all doctors we have seen, but in the end having three different diagnoses! I'm fine; at home, in the warm and quite amused really!

As I said, life's good, quite, quite good actually ... but I do need to stop procrastinating an essay for college!