Matthew Henry John Bartlett

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Thursday 30 September, 02004

Food review

by Tim @ 9:41 pm

If you haven’t yet discovered it, Delish is the latest brand of peanut butter on our supermarket shelves. I saw it in Pak ‘n Save the other day for the first time. Being a huge peanut butter fan, I was eager to try this new conglomeration of sqaushed peanuts in a pot. So I did, and here’s what I think…

The first thing that struck me as I removed the lid was the seal that had to be removed before I could reach the peanutty goodness. “Aha, a sign of freshness”, I thought. A good start. But then I inserted my knife. And by ‘inserted’ I don’t mean ‘easily slid’, I mean ‘shoved’. Delish peanut butter is incredibly dry to the touch, unlike the perennial favourite, Eta. Spreading that is like a hot knife through butter. Once you get Delish on your bread, however, you immediately forgive its lack of moisture. It’s well worth the effort. The initial, and cliched, peanut flavour is followed by a heavenly after taste. It’s like the makers of Delish have literally covered your tongue in peanuts, dispatched a myriad of sugar fairies to shower your taste buds with their sweet sweet ammunition, and washed it all down with a river of honey. I think I’m in love.

Wednesday 29 September, 02004

by Matthew Bartlett @ 11:59 pm

Notes on community

Interesting…

by Tim @ 10:59 pm

Is it mere coincedence that 76% of Americans support a ban on assault weapons and online holiday sales are up 76%? I think not. Clearly there are a lot of people on holiday at the moment without assault weapons.

Tuesday 28 September, 02004

by Matthew Bartlett @ 1:00 pm

Paste on Interpol
Jenifer Tidwell on the Toyota Prius
From Christianity to Baha’i to Christianity

Fish back

by Matthew Bartlett @ 8:27 am

This week I’ve seen fish in the harbour which is really nice because I haven’t seen fish in the harbour since last summer, when you could always look down from behind Freyberg Pool or next to Chaffers Marina and see fish playing and eating each other amongst the seaweed on the sea wall. No fish since summer except for the one day I saw a seal in Oriental Bay playing with his food, a fish, like a cat with a mouse. I have seen and with my brother Richard have seen thousands of tiny fish with silver undersides moving in swirling moiré patterns revealing and hiding the silver glinting when the sun came out, with a woman in a kayak above, or larger fish below. The kahawai scared them away, the little fish, and they tell each other one at a time to get out of here, and that turns the silver swirling into pandemonium, mad flight disturbing the surface and when the bubbles had cleared one little fish left behind all alone. All alone except for the kahawai below who shoots up and swallows the straggler. And I wonder where they slept all these months.

Monday 27 September, 02004

by Matthew Bartlett @ 9:14 pm

Wendell Berry audio

by Matthew Bartlett @ 8:40 am

Recently I heard that the suicide to homicide ratio in the United States is around 2:1. A little bit of squirreling around here and here at Stats NZ leads me to think that here it is around 2.4:1.

Saturday 25 September, 02004

by Matthew Bartlett @ 4:40 pm

Said Vincent van Gogh:

Because I see so many weak souls trampled underfoot, I am reluctant to believe in the truth of much that is called progress and education. I do believe in education, but only in the kind that is based on a genuine love of humankind.

[via dd]

Thursday 23 September, 02004

by Matthew Bartlett @ 8:17 am

Pacifier are Shihad again
Piano poem by Stuart

Wednesday 22 September, 02004

by Matthew Bartlett @ 8:48 am

Fractal gallery [via Ian G]

Tuesday 21 September, 02004

by Matthew Bartlett @ 8:25 pm

No song in all the world is so suited to interpretive dance as Parabola by Tool.

WIT Bible Symposium

by Matthew Bartlett @ 6:18 pm

Saturday 16 October the Wellington Institute of Theology is holding a symposium ‘Approaching the Bible’. Tim McKenzie (who wrote that letter I posted a little while back) is one of the speakers. The topics look really interesting: “The idea of revelation in a post-modern culture: The revelatory role of story & the history of God as one who reveals”, “Scripture in Christianity and Islam: a comparative study of the role of sacred scripture, tradition, and the principles of interpretation” and “Fundamentalism: the word and the phenomenon”. Download the full programme [50k PDF] if you like.

by Matthew Bartlett @ 5:20 pm

Stop Motion Studies [via Deb]
Chris Gousmett: Faith in the unseen [40k PDF]
Chapter One of Steve Chalke’s The Lost Message of Jesus [90k PDF]

by Matthew Bartlett @ 2:44 pm

Dr Paul Ford wrote:

I believe in the Emperor-beyond-the-Sea who has put within time the Deep Magic, and, before all time, the Deeper Magic.

I believe in his Son Aslan who sang into being all the worlds and all that they contain: Talking Beasts and humans, dumb animals and shining spirits. And I believe that Aslan was a true beast, the king of beasts, a Lion; that for Edmund, a traitor because of his desire for Turkish Delight, he gave himself” into the power of the White Witch, who satisfied the requirements of the Deep Magic by killing him most horribly. At the dawn following that darkest, coldest night, he was restored to full life by the Deeper Magic, cracking the Stone Table and, from that moment, setting death to work backwards. He exulted in his new life and went off to rescue all those who had been turned into stone by the Witch’s want and to deliver the whole land from everlasting winter. He will be behind all the stories of our lives; and, when it is time, he will appear again in our world to wind it up, calling all of his creatures whose hearts’ desire it is to live “farther in and farther up” in his country which contains all real countries.

I believe that upon us all falls the breath of Aslan and that ours are the sweet waters of the Last Sea which enable us to look steadily at the sun. I believe that all who have thrilled or will thrill at the sound of Aslan’s name are now our fellow voyagers and our fellow kings and queens; that all of us can be for ever free of our dragonish thoughts and actions; and that one day we will pass through the door of death into “Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read; which goes on for ever; in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

[quoted in his lecture on the theology of Narnia (RA video)]

Monday 20 September, 02004

Church rugby

by Tim @ 4:48 pm

A combined Reformed Church rugby team will be tackling (excuse the pun/cliche) a team from The Street this Saturday (25 September) at 12:30pm at Evans Bay Park. Come one, come all! Scream, shout, or nervously chew your nails as these two denominations battle it out for the title of Top Denomination in Wellington (well, not really…in fact I think The Street is non-denominational). Inter Reformed Church quarrels will be laid aside. Rugby will act as the glue of love that binds our churches together. Players from Wellington will reach between the legs of Silverstream members in a scrum of unity. South African shorts will be lovingly grasped by Dutch hands. Canadians will also take part in some sort of powerful metaphor. Various other forms of symbolism will be bandied about. Bring a handkerchief folks, this one’s gonna be a tear jerker.

Warmest regards,
Captain T J Sterne