matthew henry john bartlett

Shirky: Fork World, Nomic World
Clay Shirky interview

Here’s my starting XV after watching the trial:
Kees Mueews
Andrew Hore
Greg Somerville
Chris Jack
Jono Gibbes
Jerry Collins
Richie McCaw
Xavier Rush
Justin Marshall
Andrew Mehrtens
Daniel Carter
Tana Umaga
Joe Rococoko
Doug Howlett
Nick Evans

JH Kunstler on the Abu Ghraib thing [scroll to May 24]

I got published this week. In our church bulletin, that is:

I sat in church last Sunday morning listening to John read the preparation for Lord’s Supper and I had an idea. I thought I’d write down some of what the Lord’s Supper means to me. Maybe you’ll find some of it helpful:

When I eat the bread and drink the port, I remember the King gave up His life so that we might live. Jesus our food and drink, God’s Spirit the air we breathe: our lives’ most basic needs. I don’t eat alone. My family are here; my true brothers and sisters, and my true Father. Sometimes I remember the challenge too: I eat the broken body and shed blood and I know I’m committing myself to the same bloody path He trod. I’m supposed to be a sacrifice too. Sacrificing my life, my ambitions and goals for the sake of God, His people and His world. Living and maybe dying to bring God’s comfort to a mourning world. Where on earth will I get the strength to live like that?

It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

I recommend Rainbow Laundry Powder, made by Clorogene Supplies in Petone. It’s cheaper than most, biodegrable, and my clothes are sweeter smelling and the colours are noticably brighter than when I was using Cold Water Surf.

Lyrics: Belle & Sebastian/Stay Loose
Odd old ads

The chosen All Black squad is perfect. Highlight for me was the inclusion of Mehrts and Nick Evans. The only player I believe is lucky to be there is Muliaina who was only picked because of the distinct lack of good quality fullbacks in this country.
The more I see of Graham Henry, the more I think John Mitchell was a complete (expletive). See John, talking to the media like a normal person isn’t that hard!

Some people at Vic have started Eco-justice Wellington, o yeah. I’ve joined them, and tonight I made us a blog. Hopefully this will become a useful resource, alerting people to nifty events and linking to hot stewardship/ecology articles.

I’ve noticed that lots of my friends regularly villify practically every separate thing that I like or love or put my hand to. That’s wierd. Often I find myself thinking thoughts like “I never take this attiude with things *you* like”.

Wednesday night was a great night. Jenny had a going-away dinner. I was late, I went to a communion service at St Peters with the chaplaincy people, and learned quite a bit about prayer which I can’t yet put into words. I didn’t get to the dinner part, but the coffee and sweets part was super. Some of us went to Syn bar afterwards and had a grand wee boogie: “Ladies ladies ladies ladies/I got whatcha need/so tell me whatcha need“.

I spent the long weekend at Queens Birthday Camp. It was a nice time. It was fun being one of the old guys. It is hard to remember what it was like going to youth camps as a small person chock full of insecurities. The camp theme was Stewardship, which chuffed me. The end of Exodus 35 is choice, where CRAFTSMANSHIPly abilities are ascribed to the Spirit of God being in the craftsmen and women. I enjoyed pulling out some generic questions to good effect: “What is one of your favourite places in the world?”, “What are five of your favourite things?”, “What’s one thing you’re really good at?”. Five of my first cousin twice removed Helena’s favourite things are Going To The Pool, Going To The river, Playing Piano, Going To Friends’ Houses and Eating Dessert. I think she is six. The three older angels at my table listed Chocolate as one of their Five Favourite Things.

The Rev. Kavanaugh said he thinks the fire St Peter talks about cleanses rather than destroys the earth, else the whole creation would be groaning to be destroyed, which is nuts. That’s a cool point because it means our work here is worthwhile, looking after the world is an excellent thing to spend our energies on, it’s a new Heavens and Earth we’re promised, not just a new Heavens.

The little guys are funny, but they aren’t as funny as we were back in the day. They told me when they talk to old people at church they have to be fake, either goody two-shoes fake or funny-guy fake. I was scared for them driving home in Holdens and prayed no one would die on the way back. I’ve been driving since I was fifteen and it’s not my fault I’m still alive.

I am back home now and polishing off my $6 bottle of Queen Adelaide Riesling. Some music is just right for slightly boozed. David Gray, Keane work well. Nothing too demanding.

I would like to borrow Paul Marshall’s Heaven is Not My Home and Brian J Walsh’s Truth is Stranger Than it Used to Be if anyone has them.

NO ABORTED BABIES GO TO HELL

SAYS THE GOOD REV K:
TO YOU GOD’S GREATEST GIFT
IS YOURSELF

SAYS I:
YOU HAVE INFINITY INSIDE
DON’T TRY AND IMITATE OTHERS’ FINITE OUTSIDES

Comment on James Howard Kunstler
Martin Buber’s two ways of being
The Beatles: Come Together [Flash animation]
Lyrics: Massive Attack/Prayer for England

Tonight at St Peter’s Tim (following NTW, I think) said that it is a constant temptation for us to think of our God in terms of various philosophical traditions, traditions which are in no way shaped by Jesus or the cross. While he was speaking, I was thinking “It is difficult for me to read even just the Old Testament – let alone the New – and understand how language like ‘without parts or passions’ is appropriate for talking about our God”. Tim presented the doctrine of the Trinity as the product of the early Christians trying to bring together Jewish monotheism and this man Jesus who did what only Yahweh can do. I was thinking “Yes, this makes sense! The Doctrine of the Trinity wasn’t dropped from heaven like flyers from a propaganda plane, it’s part of our God’s working in real history”. Before communion, we said the Nicene Creed together, and I said it with rather more gusto than previously.

Quoting Tim’s handout:

Moltmann says in The Crucified God: people are right to disbelieve in the impassive God, because only a suffering God can love. But God is not impassive: he loves, he suffers. On the Cross, the Son dies, and the Father suffers the death of his Son. Father and Son are therefore in loving solidarity with suffering of the world: the Holy Spirit flows out from this experience to the world.

Everything is nice. Especially walking to breakfast along Oriental Parade and Taranaki Wharf watching the sunrise over the Tararuas and the Hutt Valley, and horizontal fire on Wellington Harbour. But especially breakfast with good friends. But especially walking back home again to work, feeling a little sorry for the people going slower than me in their portable coffins, watching hazy sunlight spill down from the mountains to the valley into the harbour like a waterfall.

08/06/04 NT Wright interview [via Kevin B]

In an audio lecture James Skillen says that ‘Humans as God’s image-bearers’ is more basic than the ‘Creator-creature distinction’.

I don’t know what the Orthodox mean when they use the word ‘divinization’ but perhaps it’s that as we image God by the power of his Spirit we are almost drawn into the Trinity, become part of the internal communication of love between the Persons. Yeah that’s nice: the Son says “I love you” to the Father, and we’re the words he uses, and back again.

Also, Wikipedia on theosis.

If you know Kamran Nazir you may be interested in this letter from him [430k PDF], and his plan for reforming the churches in Pakistan [340k PDF].

I stayed the night at Mum & Dad’s. We shared dinner with Jonathan & Kelly. They’re great people, it will be nice when they move down for good in a few months. Jonathan chuffed me thoroughly when I learned he really liked Lost in Translation.

Jerry Falwell, when the Moral Majority was founded said:

God created America for two purposes: to make possible the evangelisation of the world, and to protect the state of Israel.

If you want to be more than just a commenter on this site, feel free to register, and maybe I’ll upgrade your membership and let you write your own posts.

Also, if you do register, to aid my deliberations, feel so free to email me and tell me how you feel you’d be able make this site a more glorious place.

James Howard Kunstler: What I live for
The glorious Social Gospel

Orthodoxy’s theosis, with fasting understood in terms of Isaiah 58 is AWEXOME, and the greatest and most beautiful synthesis you will see this week. I guarantee it.

Dear Inland Revenue

Thanks for the tasty tax rebate.

Love,
Matthew

St Matthew’s use of Isaiah 7:14 [via Rance D]

I recommend photospace gallery’s current show ‘Exposed’, which finishes on Monday.

The All Blacks treated New Zealand to an exquisitely titillating performance on Saturday. I can not think of anything to critisise. Unfortunately the English School Girls XV could have been more challenging opposition. The Poms did not do the English rose proud, they played like a bunch of pansies. Some of the tackles on Joe Rokocoko were about as effective as a slap in the face with a wet flannel. What a shame they didn’t play like that 6 months ago.
The worst part of the game was the 3 Sport commentary. Quote, Hamish McKay: “3 Sport, bringing you free to air coverage. We don’t charge you, and the All Blacks charge all over the opposition”…what a cunning linguist.

Dear Wellington City Council

Thanks for the seasonal Hosting Guides and the Oriental Bay beach and planting natives in the town belt where the pines have gone bad above my house and in the grassy bits between Brooklyn and Newtown.

Love,
Matthew

I went to a party, and there were lots of gay men there, and I was ill-at-ease and frightened in some sense.

Doug Wilson on the image of God
Freya Mathews: Good home-making (Full article)
Big plasma arc made by a friend of mine

TOURISM IS EVIL DEATH STINKYPOO

The man who was closest to a mentor to me when I lived in Masterton told me his best and deepest evangelism question was “What do you do with your guilt?” Tonight I say mine is “To whom are you thankful for all the good things?”

Reasonable estimates of the population of an average Death Star suggest that the Rebel Alliance probably killed a similar number of people when they destroyed the Death Star II as the Galatic Empire did in the destruction of Alderaan.

I have had to read six novels and several short stories this trimester for university. Three of the novels contained descriptions of man-love or bi-sexuality, and many of the short stories followed similar themes. The latest made me angry. The Golden Gate by Vickram Seth is a superb piece of writing until…

…Phil thinks, “Why
Be so uptight? He’s a great guy.
I’ve never bothered with convention.
God! It’s a year that I’ve been chaste…,”
And puts his arm round Ed’s waist…

I can’t repeat what follows. It’s not that I’m a homophobe, I just don’t see why 50% of the material I am required to read should involve sodomy. Am I being unreasonable? They could at least provide a disclaimer as warning.

For some balance on the currently hot topic of homosexuality, read this from Rance D which I first posted about a year ago.

A good way to make exams and essays easier on one’s constitution, is to write with the aim of including a certain word or phrase regardless of it’s suitability. Example: I once challenged myself to include the phrase, ‘women, can’t live with them, can’t live without them’, in a Classics essay. I succeeded. For single words, pretentiousness is the key. Perhaps people could offer suggestions to help students with upcoming assessments.

At the foreshore fora I was introduced to the Catholic idea of subsidiarity, part of their catechism :

A community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to co-ordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good.

Read more here, here and here. It is a fundamental principle of the EU consitution too.

The news floated down the hall from the TV room: one in four fetuses are aborted in New Zealand.

Both Matt and I are involved in a Mentoring and Discipling Team in our church. On Saturday July 31 we are conducting a seminar on ‘working with God as your employer’. 3pm start. Venue yet to be decided but probably Wainuiomata Reformed Church. There are some restrictions…you have to be over the age of 15, and not dead. People are coming from as far away as Auckland so don’t be afraid to travel if you live outside of Wellington. Bring some cash to pay for the delicious dinner that we will feed you.

Aaron and I went to the From Plato to Nato seminar at Vic taken by Dr Peter Vardy discussing the Problem of Evil, with a particular focus on assisting RE teachers. It was rather worthwhile.

Dr Vardy is a brilliant and affecting orator. At one point he had us imagine standing above the lime pits looking down at the bodies of Jewish children and adults, at the point where philosophy, theory, rationality end, with Ivan Karamazov on our left, and Job on our right. With Ivan, we can choose to reject this God who allows tiny children to suffer miserably (what greater good could possibly justify that evil?), turn and do as we please, or we can with Job be silent, fearing, uncomprehending, take the step of faith and trust Him anyway.

Dr Vardy had us think quietly to ourselves for two minutes and ponder: “Imagine for the sake of argument there is an afterlife, and a judgment, and you are called to account for your life, and you fail the test (whatever the test is). What is it you have done or not done, do you think, that was the key failure?” He suggested we likely answered that question for ourselves with things like incidents of adultery, fornication, lust, theft, etc. He proposed that there was a larger category of evil we’d likely missed, but which is a key part of much of the misery of the world. This category he labeled institutional or structural evil. The kind of evil that let ordinary German citizens, churchgoers even, participate in a society which murdered as many people as it did. That kind of systemic evil, the evil of going along with the crowd is perhaps the hardest to fight.

I am excited by the idea of ordinary young people in New Zealand schools lifting their heads for a moment from the interminable soap opera of teenage life and facing some of the big questions of what it means to be human.

Today is the day. Trinity Roots’ new album Home, Land & Sea is out. I am excited.

George MacLeod, who founded the Iona Community is quoted by Vinoth Ramachandra in a lecture about the Gospel of John, the cross and public theology [streaming/downloadable 17MB MP3] as saying:

“I simply argue that the cross should be raised at the center of the marketplace as well as on the steeple of the Church. I am recovering the claim that Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves; on the town’s garbage heap; at a crossroads so cosmopolitan they had to write His title in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek… at the kind of place where cynics talk smut and thieves curse, and soldiers gamble. Because that is where He died, and that is what He died for, and that is what He died about… that is where churchmen ought to be and what churchmen ought to be about.”

As husbandly headship is to be understood in terms of Jesus’ example (self-sacrifice, feet-washing &c.), so ideas about dominion rule subjugation of creation by humans (the ‘creation mandate’) have to be viewed through the lens of the cross.

In a lecture about kenosis, Trinity, life and Philippians 2 [streaming/downloadable 22MB MP3] Dallas Williard defines salvation as ‘being caught up in the life which Christ is now living on earth’.

So-shu dreamed,
And having dreamed that he was a bird, a bee, and a butterfly,
He was uncertain why he should try to feel like anything else,

Hence his contentment.

Music by numbers [via /.]
Exciting news from the wonderful world of weapons research

After one listen of Trinity Roots/Home, Land & Sea I am a little worried.

Doug W on homosexuality (among other things)

Isaiah says

…Zion said,
“The Lord has forsaken me;
my Lord has forgotten me.”

“Can a woman forget her nursing child,
that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget,
yet I will not forget you.
Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
your walls are continually before me.”

A poet sent me all his poems today to pore.

Two of my friends speak like handmowers in tight corners: two words forward one word back. “I guess you’ll… you’ll just have to do what he says”.

Some songs have pursued me like purgatory hounds or some kind of drug addiction. Some I’ve hunted for years, catching last verses on AM radio. I have a list I could list, but what’s the point?

Doves say

Through the streets and on your own
Almost lost and almost home
We’ll be looking all we can
We’ll be searching for the sulphur man

I can’t sleep.
I am losing endless games of spider solitaire.
I’ve a smile on my dial.

Brian McLaren: An Open Letter to Chuck Colson

I was thinking yesterday in church that whenever you forgive someone you are absorbing the hurt/damage they have caused. Putting away your rights and taking blows you don’t deserve. So perhaps when we forgive we’re being most like our God.

They (I don’t know who) say actions speak louder than words. That’s not always true. Yesterday somebody said something to me that put a lump in my throat…and it wasn’t a girl. It was far more effective than if they had offered to do my dishes or something.

All day I have the feeling I have forgotten something or am missing an appointment or have inadvertantly left something behind.

I went to Masterton today on the train. I slept there and back and had three pieces of my old boss Ted’s 70th birthday cake to eat all day. It is nice having Aaron flat here. The landlord is visiting tomorrow to fix a leak in one of our second toilet’s cistern. I finished Richard Prebble’s short book I’ve been thinking and found it worthwhile. I’m tempted to vote ACT again, though various online quizzes tell me I’m centrist these days. I didn’t hear any recorded music all day. I sang some to myself walking to the train though. Mum dropped me home this morning (I’d stayed the night at Mum & Dad’s) so that I could get better clothes for work but my boss didn’t like my winter season outfit much. I finished Norman Maclean’s A river runs through it which is I think deeper than me. He doesn’t do the reader any favours. I think he is being respectful of the limits of language. Perhaps Dave will appreciate it when I give it to him, being about fly fishing and brother troubles and all.

Belle and Sebastian say

And I know it could be me
I’m always asking for more
I keep running round in circles
I keep looking for a doorway
I’m going to need two lives
To follow the paths I’ve been taking

Their Dear Catastrophe Waitress is the front runner for album of the year.

I liked the book. I liked his ideas about the impossibility of value-free education. I liked his creative problem-solving get-things-done approach. I like that he came from a Labour background and identified institutional evil in the form of statist inefficiency and corrected it where he could, rather than having a prior ideological commitment to libertarianism. I don’t like that he doesn’t appear particularly aware of the possibility of institutional evil in private corporations. I don’t like the unquestioned idea that exporting/importing is great. I don’t like that economic growth is an unqualified and unexamined good.

Sunday Star Times article on Destiny Church [via David H]
Melvyn Bragg’s BBC series In Our Time [RA links]
Wendell Berry: The Idea of a Local Economy

Huzzah – National Radio is available in Wellington on FM 101.3 & 104.5 now.

I collect stories of intellectual vertigo. A man I met yesterday evening said he experienced what might be called spiritual vertigo upon realising that suffering pain hardship is not optional. It was a shock to him when he realised God didn’t make it easy for even the best man, Jesus. God didn’t even give him a choice. Terrifying.

I ENJOY PHILOSOPHY INSOFAR AS I ENJOY A CLEVER JOKE

Art machines [via RDB]

You’ll no doubt be pleased to learn that TrinityRoots/Home, Land and Sea is growing on me.

It appears trite at first, but I think the question at the end of this quote (from ZMM) is very profound:

The South Indian Monkey Trap
The trap consists of a hollowed-out coconut chained to a stake. The coconut has some rice inside which can be grabbed through a small hole. The hole is big enough so that the monkey’s hand can go in, but too small for his fist with rice in it to come out. The monkey reaches in and is suddenly trapped… by nothing more than his own value rigidity. He can’t revalue the rice. He cannot see that freedom without rice is more valuable than capture with it. The villagers are coming to get him and take him away. They’re coming closer — closer! — now! What general advice… not specific advice… but what general advice would you give the poor monkey in circumstances like this?

In an interview, Wendell Berry said:

Nothing exists for its own sake but for a harmony greater than itself which includes it. A work of art which accepts this condition and exists upon its terms honors the creation and so becomes a part of it.

Today I got to touch a little blue penguin. It had tiny blue feathers really tightly packed on its back.

I think I’ll make a whip today, tip some tables over, maybe rub some clay & spit into someone’s eyes.

In a good article The Open Source Paradigm Shift, Tim O’Reily says:

I have a simple test that I use in my talks to see if my audience of computer industry professionals is thinking with the old paradigm or the new. “How many of you use Linux?” I ask. Depending on the venue, 20-80% of the audience might raise its hands. “How many of you use Google?” Every hand in the room goes up. And the light begins to dawn. Every one of them uses Google’s massive complex of 100,000 Linux servers, but they were blinded to the answer by a mindset in which “the software you use” is defined as the software running on the computer in front of you. Most of the “killer apps” of the Internet, applications used by hundreds of millions of people, run on Linux or FreeBSD. But the operating system, as formerly defined, is to these applications only a component of a larger system. Their true platform is the Internet.

Gordon McLauchlan: Dear God: What’s going on here? [via Dan]

On two consecutive Saturdays I visited the Wellington City Gallery with friends to have a look at the Telecom Prospect 2004 New Art New Zealand exhibition. I found it very hard to not adopt a distancing wry uninvolved stance towards most every item in the show. I couldn’t get a handle on anything. Nothing made any sense. I came away feeling disorientated. There are so many beautiful things around to celebrate, and so many horrible things to challenge, why are these artists all wasting everyone’s time being clever and quirky and self-involved?

Flat 4b is looking for some more lounge chairs/couches. If you know of anyone hiffing any out, do let me know.

Gomez are playing in Wellington July 9, tickets available from PostShops for $57. I intend to go. Feel so free to join me.

Demons, angels, anthropomorphisms of agglomerations of people, prinicipalities, powers, The Economy, consumerism, Pirsig’s Giant, loneliness, fashion, forces that oppress or uplift.

Perhaps mental illness is possession by the demons of the age, at least as much about societies’ sicknesses than any particular sufferer’s.

Says Walter Wink (quoted here):

So formidable a phalanx of hostility demands spiritual weaponry, for it is clear that we contend not against human beings as such (“blood and flesh”) but against the legitimations, seats of authority, hierarchical systems, ideological justifications, and punitive sanctions which their human incumbents exercise and which transcend these incumbents in both time and power. It is the suprahuman dimension of power in institutions and the cosmos which must be fought, not the mere human agent. For the institution will guarantee the replacement of this person with another virtually the same, who despite personal preferences will replicate decisions made by a whole string of predecessors because that is what the institution requires for its survival. It is this suprahuman quality which accounts for the apparent “heavenly,” bigger than life, quasi-eternal character of the Powers. Naming the Powers, pp. 85-86.

Edmund Burke said:

A clear idea is another name for a little idea.