Colourful Dreamer

Is Humility just taking the lowest place? Or is it much more? I wonder if it is knowing that my identity is really only found in God and God alone, and not in my roles, or knowledge, or title, or my position or wealth. My identity is also not found in how much I am affirmed by others, or how much I am stroked or loved. It is simply found in God. The danger in taking the lowest place is that secretly I desperately need someone to invite me further up the table. To be humble simply means being happy wherever I am placed at the table, knowing it does not matter where I am. And so for me, I have to hold on to that, to know that it does not matter where I am (when deep in my heart it matters a lot) or what I do, because where ever or whatever that is, my sense of who I am needs to be based on God's profound life giving love. To be humble is to let go of all else, and to simply trust in that love. Only then will I know perfect joy. That is humility.

Yesterday at our synod we talked about alcohol reform. The synod was clear that alcohol abuse, excess drinking is not a youth problem, but a New Zealand problem.the fun began when speakers asked us to look at our own drinking. Some suggested that we need not drink that night after synod finished. Yeah right! was the response, which was fair enough. But then a young woman suggested that we confine ourselves to four drinks that night, in line with the work of Doug Selman and the alcohol reform lobby group, that the limit be 14 drinks per week, and 4 drinks per day. We passed that. While people supported it in principle, it led to a whole lot of comments that night at the drinks before dinner and during dinner. Some of the young people present were appalled really. We are so much more happy to point at others, and call into question their drinking. But we are much less happy to look at our own drinking, and the modelling we offer, especially at church events. Which is really sad. This i...

Over the last few weeks and months our journalists have made a lot of noise about the Fiji Government's censorship of the press. Where will the press's neutrality be they ask? How can they ask the balancing and critical questions? Yesterday was the reporting of the Sensible Sentencing Trust annual event held in the Beehive in Wellington. Garth McVicars, the creator of this group was interiewed on TV1. And I had to wonder if I was watching an infomercial for the Sensible Sentencing Trust. Where, I wondered were the balancing and critical questions? Absent!!! Completely absent. Our media, or at least, TV1 (and my expereince is as bad of TV3) failed to do their job. McVicars wants parole abolished. The interviewer (Greg Boyd) lamely agreed, wondered why things were as they were, and suggested that McVicars simply was stating common sense. Is this our cherished free press at work? So is this what we want our country to be known for, as imprisoning more people per head of popul...

Simon Power has announced some changes to the drinking laws. But good as they are, they are flawed. They are flawed because they are based on the myth that the drinking problem is a youth issue. It is not. Young people mirror what they see happening in the rest of society. They crave the same marks of adulthood they see exhibited by adults. Over 90% of heavy and binge drinkers in this country are adults, over the age of 20. These changes do nothing to address these, and therefore fall far short and doing very much. Until we change societal attitudes towards drinking teenage drinking will remain a problem. The two are linked. Unfortunately while we adults are very happy to pass judgement on young people and to highlight binge drinking among young people we are much less happy to look at our own drinking habits or those of our friends and colleagues, and much less willing to do anything about that. Just listen to what politicians will talk about. Listen to what many commentators will ...

This is an excellent job, for a passionate youth worker to help develop the youth ministry between and within our three Tikanga. We need a really good person. Are you that person?

This is another posting on Clare by Ted Whitham, Minsiter for Australia.

The 11th (whatever day that was) was the feast of St. Clare. She is the other half of the Franciscan story, who with Francis laid the groundwork for the radical new way of living the gospel. She ws the first woman to have a rule approved by the Pople for a religious order, a rule that included the priveledge of poverty. (all rules for were Benedictine up to that point). She was extraordinarliry egalitarian, all were equal in God's sight and so in the life of the Order. Teh wealthiest gave all their welath away, and could bring nothing with them,unlike other Orders. All shared the menial tasks that needed to be done, including Clare herself. She taught that one should look not in the mirro to see oneself each day, but into the mirror of the crucified Christ, to measure our life of love compared to that seen there. We follow in here footsteps as much as Francis'.