Eucaview

Jono & Mel: May your Marriage Really Sing!

On Friday I celebrated the marriage of two friends Jono and Mel at Como House.

At the wedding they chose to hear a number of love songs including one Jono wrote for his bride (aaaaaah).

Two were sonnets by Shakespeare (numbers 18 and 116). Shakespeare wrote about a love that didn’t alter when other things altered or changed around it. It was “an ever-fixed mark” – an anchor point by which other things in life could be measured. It was a love that remains true even in the most extreme circumstances: “the edge of doom”. Shakespeare said love had to be able to survive tempests without being shaken. Because if love wasn’t like that - it isn’t really love at all. “If this be error … no man ever loved”.

True love shines through the storms like a star that guides wandering ships. In life, storms do come, we do get lost and we do need someone to guide us home.

The fourth love song was from the Apostle Paul. We heard 1 Corinthians 13, a section of scripture that is so poetic and lyrical it is often read at occasions like this.

The thought I wanted to bring to their attention was: “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.”

Jesus Vs Necropotence

What does Jesus have in common with Magic the Gathering's most famous skull, Necropotence? Read on!

Like all collectibles, Magic the Gathering is subject to the economic forces of supply and demand, but more demand than supply.

If an uncommon card has a big enough effect for enough people to want to play with it, the card becomes worth more than some rare cards. Even a great common card (like Rancor) can be quite valuable because there is such demand for it.

On the other hand even a rare card is pretty worthless if no one wants to play with it. Such cards are called 'junk rares'.

I came to understand the concept of junk rares when I began buying cards online. I bid for rare cards thinking they all held a minimum value until I had quite a collection of Sunstrike Legionnaires. But I could never build a good, fun deck that included the Sunstrike Legionnaire, so I discovered I didn't value the card much at all.

Which brings us to Necropotence. The effect of this card in a game is it lets you trade your life points for more cards.

ANZAC Day: A letter home

“Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” Jeremiah 29:7

Using the resources of Jeremiah 29, the ABC's PM program and "With Love to the World" here are my reflections for ANZAC day this year.

Here is a memory from the first Anzac Day, April 25, 1916. It's a letter home, written by a young Australian who'd sailed to Britain to join up for the ‘War to End all Wars’. He was fighting with an artillery brigade in France and it reflects, not the Anzac commemorations we know, but an ordinary French spring day, on the western front swept by mustard gas.

“There was a north-east wind blowing, but a very slight one. And although the Bosch let off the gas well north of us, it drifted down behind our lines and I think frightened a lot of people.

It was my day for observing. And going down the street at 5am, I tried to pull a man up on a horse, who was galloping down on me. But he waved a gas helmet in my face and said 'gas'. I could not nose any, so I went to breakfast.

I never thought much about it, til passing through a valley on the way to the observation station. There was a peculiar haze hanging about and a funny sort of sweet smell.

Later, when I, and the signaller, got to the OP, I noticed my buttons were very black like gun metal, likewise my signallers. And it dawned on me that we had a faint whiff of it in the valley.

Some of the batteries in our brigade got a good quantity of it and it made them very ill for the rest of the day. The only effect it had on me was to give me a slight pain.

Your affectionate son,

Walford.

PS. I hope my next birthday will be spent far away from gas and in quieter times at home, once more.”

Walford Manifold did make it home to Victoria, once more, but not for his birthday, or the one after that. His brother Bertie, with whom he signed up, never came home. He was blown to pieces by a direct hit from a shell. These are just two of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers Australians and New Zealanders will be remembering this ANZAC day.

Council of Christian Education in Schools: Religion in Life

I have done half a day training with the Council for Christian Education in Schools to bring up to date my accreditation to teach Christian Religious Education in State schools. I am signing up to teach one class at week at the local primary school. Hopefully I will start next term.

The session was lead by a very skilled teacher who filled us with practical ideas for communicating the Easter story and its meaning to primary aged kids. I'm using some at our church's all age service this Passion Sunday.

At the training, another teacher was complaining that the agreed syllabus we follow "Religion in Life" was too detached or objective. She said it you wouldn't even have to have faith to teach it.

I can't agree with her concern that the whole process is soulless. CCES only appoints people of faith, one of our roles is to commend the Christian faith to the kids, and the examples of how to teach the Easter material were certainly conveying the meaning of Easter. Sure the focus was on the impact on the historical disciples but there were hints of what it means for us today. It wasn't a denial of faith but making the most of an opportunity to cultivate an environment in which faith can grow.

I suspect the teacher was confusing the roles of say a Sunday School teacher who is discipling kids in the faith, and a CCES teacher who is introducing children to the religious dimension of life, giving some understanding of the Christian faith and respecting children's rights to hold their own opinions.

I wonder if others with more experience with the syllabus have any thoughts on how subjective, engaging, faith-valuing the curriculum is.

Lent 5: "Surely we're not blind are we?"

Through Lent we are reading from John's Gospel how Jesus was neighbor to a wide range of characters. This week its a blind beggar whom he sends to wash and heals on the Sabbath.

At first the beggar’s witness to Jesus as healer is doubted, especially by the Pharisees who thought they knew better than him what God in the neighborhood would look like. When the blind man sticks to his testimony and goes so far as to say Jesus is a prophet they ostracise him and cut themselves off from him.

The "blind" man then sees who Jesus really is and worships him as Lord.

How do we be neighbor to those whom we might consider ‘Blind’ to the things of God? How do we identify the ‘Blindness’ in ourselves? “Surely we’re not blind are we?”

The Man Born Blind is from www.jesusmafa.com