Published February 5, 2008 by

Starred Posts: late Jan- early Feb

The list was getting far too big, so to inundate you with yet another blog post, check out some or even all of the links below.

These are things that over the past month have inspired me, made the think, laugh, made me go ‘Ah ha!’ and all other whatevers that have given a somewhat slightly stronger response than the other posts I’ve been reading. ie. They wound up in Google Starred section.

By some fluke it seems the girls have won this time, with some nice familiar regular ‘starred’ faces showing up, along with some new ones.

Working from late Jan through to Feb:

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Published January 28, 2008 by

Amends

atonementI saw the movie Atonement tonight. Interesting. I liked it, but I probably wouldn’t make a return visit. Stunning period costume etc. and Keira Knightly is quite good (Despite being consistently annoying).

I was trying to recall what I knew about the word ‘Atonement’ before I went in. The straightforward term is as such: Satisfaction or reparation for a wrong or injury; amends. That’s okay, it’s the theological application of it.

I recall a few years back – at my one year of Bible college. Reading a detailed analysis on the confusion of the understanding of atonement. It was fascinating. Of course cannot remember most of it. The dictionary defines it so: the doctrine concerning the reconciliation of God and humankind, esp. as accomplished through the life, suffering, and death of Christ.

It’s always interesting when Christian terminology takes a center stage despite being with it’s more useful definition – suddenly the word launches itself into public familiarity.

I cannot remember when this has happened before – I’m fairly sure something along the lines has, because this is not a new thought.

But does it leave scope for the actual use of the word when you find yourself in those ad hoc conversations where your fluid mouth takes over and you’re spouting brilliance that you only half understand?

To be honest, Christian theological terms are tripe {Upon Geoff’s questioning I admit that this is not 100% true – they do sometimes have their place – for the sake of the argument :P}. Give me ordinary every day understandable English that is easy to share and explain. Not words to explain concepts that need words to explain the words. It’s a useless wheel.

Although be kind and leave some of the poetry. It’s such a tightrope.

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Published December 12, 2007 by

Wondering

pony.jpgThis morning things were much and frustrating. I went for a stint to get my eyes sorted only to be gobsmobbled by the dollar value an unavoidable somewhat heretical issue relating to the cost of lenses not frames. Fortunately, cost aside, my eyes have declined only ever so slightly and are coping marvelously with the contact lenses. I should have ‘the new look’ in a week or two with my pocket sorely narrower. They are nice frames. If you have an OPSM voucher to take any amount off the cost of lenses I would kill you for it. Please make it mine. I can promise you blog credit (or at least much thanks).

So my head is cleared momentarily while my eyes have lights shone into them and are stretching, stretching to make out minute H’s and P’s, then my head is bombed with the cost – which overshaddows the previous: oh there’s so much left to do before the wedding/uni enrollment is slightly different than it should be/Tabor’s chasing me for my certificate which has a number wrong on it and I can’t find it etc. etc. etc.

So I go home and I annoy my sister while looking for an OPSM voucher (that ‘might’ve’ come recently) and I tell her to tell me why she likes her boy and then I snooze on her bed and find a potato lunch.

Then I go to search for sanity.

So this cafe is no longer ‘right’ and that cafe is full, so I go up the mountain and keep going to that nice place and it’s not so full as it normally is on a beautiful day, and I order a big coffee while confusing the waitress and I go out and sit outside. In a short time I get up and move tables and enjoy the sun and then the latte and the copious lists, literal lists that keep streaming from my eyes and I am writing it out and sprewing the junk from my brain storing it elsewhere for later and I’m giving myself time to enjoy and to think and to stop and to bah expectations. I dictate an approach to life that resides with the idealistic possible.

I go for a wander in search of an illusive comb/clip. Drive and wander. Drive and wander and wander bang into an old friend and talk and leave and wander and buy some fun antique Christmas decorations for hardly anything at all. I don’t find the comb.

Then I drive off the mountain and fight cars for places and spend twenty minutes with the best ever Myers Store person ever while they sort how to ‘fly in’ something we’re after for the wedding. Victoria hasn’t any left. Brisbane does but you have to pay extra. Perth is shocking on the phone but finally successful. 17 left. She pulls strings for me and gets in extras to check sizes. I leave details, a smile and the promise of a call within 10 days. It sometimes pays to use the word wedding.

Geoff and I bash around in the kitchen and cook nice food then watch a crazy movie we’ve had stored up. Science of Sleep. It is brilliant. It’s totally whacked. We talk and think and talk and think and then I tell him to go to bed and now I’m home, here.

image from here 

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Published September 26, 2007 by

Amy Tan

Amy Tan is an absolute genius.

I’m currently reading the Opposite of Fate which is somewhat a memoir, somewhat a collection of writings. I would have read maybe two or three of her other books, The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God’s Wife and one other. This the best -if I can impose my opinion- because of its honesty and candidacy.

I think of writing, she is my inspiration, and would be of fiction should I ever write anything anywhere else. I find it hard to write fiction, I can write from life – somewhat shabbily at times – but it is writing. Life is kind of the point though, Tan takes her observation and experience and winds it into something softly grander. I hope to do the same in my own way, although I doubt that I’ll ever sell books off it.

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Published August 18, 2007 by

Two hours of Blaise Pascal’s life

Of the five folded corners of Generous Orthodoxy, this one requires the least explanation. Brian McLaren quotes Blaise Pascal on a poem – this guy – Pascal, was a prose-happy, rational being who seemingly had a few fleeting hours of heart filled inspiration and gratefulness that expressed itself.

MEMORIAL
The year of grace 1654
Monday, 23 November…
From about half past ten in the evening until about half past midnight
FIRE.
“GOD of Abraham, GOD of Issac, GOD of Jacob”
not of the philosophers of the learned.
Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace.
GOD of Jesus Christ.
“My God and your God…”
Forgetfulness of the world and of everything
except GOD.
He is to be found only in the ways taught in the Gospel.
Greatness of the human soul.
“Righteous Father, the world has not known you,
but I have known you.”
Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy.
I have departed from him:
“They have forsaken me, the fount of living water.”
“My God, will you leave me?”
Let me not be separated from him forever.
“This is eternal life,
that they might know you, the one true God,
and the one that you sent, Jesus Christ.”
Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ.
I left him;
I fled him,
renounced,
crucified.
Let me never be separated from him.
He is only kept securely by the ways taught in the Gospel:

Renunciation, total and sweet.
Complete submission to Jesus Christ and to my director.
Eternally in joy for a day’s exercise on the earth.
Not to forget your words. Amen.

I think it is one of the most beautiful and honest things I have ever read.

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