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14th May 2008

What I’ve Been Doing Today – 2008-05-14

  • I’ve finally achieved my century of eBay feedback – currently 104 not out with a blue star, though I really need to stay away from eBay… #
  • looking at the Federal budget – our family loses a fair bit on this one. First time I can remember actually being worse off after a budget #



Categories : Twitter | 0 Comments

14th May 2008

Challenging conservatism

Great article from Huffington Post (who also have one of the best iPhone news apps, though very US-centric). Although the author, Mike Lux, seems to have walked away from orthodox Christianity, he still seems to have a very good grasp of scripture. In this he challenges the extreme political conservatism of many American Christians in the face of the pervasive Biblical emphases to the contrary. Well worth a read, and in my opinion, he’s pretty much on the money for most of it.

I don’t think Australian Christians suffer as much from quite the same narrow political focus as our American cousins, however there is the potential for us to head in that direction. It will be interesting to see what transpires on June 21 when Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott address Australian churches via webcast (see Australiavotes.org) I sincerely hope the focus of the discussion is broadened beyond the traditional favourite issues of conservative American evangelicalism (ie. anti-gay and pro-life) to include more pressing global issues of poverty and injustice. For example, will the government be held accountable for their budget which, in an act of tricky accounting, reduced our foreign aid obligations by over $1 billion over the next 4 years? This webcast is run by Jim Wallace (not to be confused with the excellent left-leaning American author of God’s Politics, Jim Wallis) and the Australian Christian Lobby. I’m not always 100% on the same page as them, but I do think thus far they usually keep their agenda relatively broad and not overtly partisan. Will be interesting to watch…

In the meantime here’s some of the meat of Mike Lux’s article that I referenced above :

Read the rest of this entry »



Categories : Christianity | 0 Comments

14th May 2008

Local shots 10


Local shots 10

Originally uploaded by baggas

This one’s from last week – Shoalwater Bay. My friend used to live a street back from this beach so we spent a lot of time down there as kids. I particularly remember one episode where we got freaked out by an angry seal when we tried to swim to Seal Island. We ended up turning around and going back to shore. Good times.

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Categories : Local, Personal, photos | 0 Comments

14th May 2008

Happenings

Time to update after a busy few days.

We spent the weekend down south in Manjimup visiting Jen’s brother. Stayed in a farm stay cottage which was nice for the kids, getting to feed and play with all the animals – donkeys, ponies, sheep, cattle, birds, an alpaca and others. Did a bit of four wheel driving in the Karri forrest down there and overall just had a good relaxing time. On the way back I trusted the GPS to take us the shortest route however this was not necessarily the quickest – we wound up driving along the “Blackwood River tourist drive” which was an incredibly beautiful winding drive along the river through hilly forest and farmland… but very slow. Lesson for the future : if the GPS says go one way and my judgement says go another, trust myself instead of the computer (assuming of course I have a fair idea of where I am and where I’m going).

The last few days have been busy with work and other things. Yesterday I got my car serviced and went to Perth to do a few bits and pieces. Sure glad I don’t live in Mandurah – the drive from Perth to Mandurah is just that little bit too long for my liking.

The other thing which may or may not be happening is that there is a chance I may be going over to Myanmar (Burma) soon to help in the relief efforts in the aftermath of the horrendous cyclone. Of course this is dependant on whether their government decides to issue visas for foreign workers to come and help. But my name is on the list with an organisation who are hoping to send a medical team in so we will see what happens. I would have mixed feelings about going and leaving Jen and the three kids including baby Mia, so it would necessarily be a fairly short trip but hopefully I would be able to do some good for people. For this sort of thing it’s Jen making much more of a sacrifice than I would be, by allowing me to go. So please pray for both of us, and the entire sitatuation over there.

Anyway for the time being there’s work to be done here and patients waiting to be seen, so I’d better get on with it.

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Categories : Australia, Family, Missions, Personal | 2 Comments