pear shaped.

pear shaped.
Originally uploaded by nomadic eyes

lit window.

lit window.
Originally uploaded by nomadic eyes

Drained.

Drained.
Originally uploaded by nomadic eyes

Basket.

Basket.
Originally uploaded by nomadic eyes

Playing with Hipstamatic.

Processing...

Uncharacteristically I listened to a bit of talkback this morning on the way to work instead of my audio books.  I guess I needed a reprieve from Madame Bovary.  I heard an interview with Abbott on the "processing" of refugees.  I am not sure what I think of Gillard's plan to "process" asylum seekers in East Timor, but I do know I hate the language used.  I have blogged about this before, but can't help commenting on it again.  Processing - a word associated with papers, not people.  Factories, not people.  Plastic cheese.  Not people.  Salami, not people.  Especially not people fleeing devastating regimes, starvation, persecution.  People whose very lives are dependent on finding asylum in a country supposedly willing to "give everyone a fair go".  When we start using words like processing in relation to people, we dehumanise.  Processing them sounds like not being all that interested in their stories.  It sounds like a lot of paperwork to find a way to send them back.  It sounds like deafness and blindness to injustice, in the name of Australia's "precious borders".  The lack of compassion just in language alone is appalling.  Part of me wishes that Marsden's imagined invasion of Australia really happened (Tomorrow when the war began).  Just so people like Abbott and other like-minded people on both sides of politics could experience what it is like to be on the outer, displaced, afraid, and to have lost everything.  Rant over.  For now.

Jesus gets axed....

Well written Mark Sayers... There is much to recognize in this piece of prose that is cringe-worthy.

Dear Jesus,

I have been praying that you are sensing God’s presence during this difficult week for us all. Last night the Church board and I held an emergency meeting and I am writing to inform you that we have come to a difficult decision. Writing this email is one of the hardest things that I have had to do at my time here at Belmont Community Church. Before I tell you of our decision, I felt that it was only fair to explain how we as a Church leadership came to our decision and for me to share with you how I have been affected by your behaviour. In order to maintain clarity I will address the various issues regarding your employment as a pastor at our Church. Before I start I really want to say how difficult this has been for me and Alison, I am not above stating that I cried before I wrote this email. Things started so well when you came on staff, it was a joy to have you around the place and the congregation loved having you. I am still struggling to comprehend what went wrong.  But here goes;

Behaviour During Church Services

I have communicated time and time again in our leadership meeting the idea that how we as leaders act, affects the whole congregation. Sundays are meant to be a fun, upbeat and inspiring time. We are trying to create an atmosphere that communicates the idea the gospel is good news and that those who put their faith in God will receive abundant life. Your constant habit of crying and weeping over the fate of our neighbourhood, completely works against this. I have been so confused by your mood swings, one minute you are full of joy – the next you will be weeping for the whole service. After talking to Dr Blackby I am more and more wondering if you suffering from a form of Bi Polar disorder or manic depression, I really encourage you to go and get this checked out. You can be so dark sometimes, which is not attractive to unchurched people and a totally different place to where we are going as a church.

Being a Good Example.

I hear things about where and with whom you hang out. I really do hope that some of the stories that I am hearing are wrong and merely gossip. But I have to admit that some of the people who you bring to church do make me wonder what circles you are mixing in. I certainly hope the stories about the party at Matt’s place are not true. As a single guy it is never a good look to be hanging around with women who work in the adult industry. To turn up to leaders meets smelling of dope can only lead others into bad places. You need to get into an accountability group ASAP.

The Jewish Thing

I totally understand that you were raised in a Jewish home and in the Jewish faith. We loved the service that you put on during passover it was great to hear you sing the psalms so beautifully  in Hebrew. The ladies at our Golden Gals ministry loved you teaching them Jewish Dancing. But I really do not understand why you continue to wear your prayer Shawl and yarmulke to church. At the interfaith city dinner Rabbi Rosen told me that you attend synagogue weekly??? He was under the impression that you were a practicing Jew and did not refer to yourself as Christian??? For goodness sake you need to work out where you stand, and who you identify with! Are you Jewish or are you Christian, what team are you playing on? Where do you loyalties lie??? Your behaviour just makes things confusing for people.

The Night at @tomic.

After ripping my hair out for months wondering where to place you, I finally thought that our emerging young adults congregation @tomic would be the best place for you. It is edgy, justice focused, andthey love conversation, it is in a bar, and filled with Christians who don’t like the vibe of our sunday services. But then the morning after you speak – I am inundated with emails from angry young adults telling me that you got all ‘hellfire and brimstone’ on them. They even started a facebook group to keep you away from the bar! Seriously what were you thinking telling them that ‘they will always have the poor with them’.??? Don’t you know that half that crew work for Christian aid organisations? I had to promise them that you would not come back! They said that you were too full on, too fundamentalist.

The Incident at Belmont Reformed Church

After the @tomic incident I was totally at my wits end of what to do with you. I mentioned the incident to my friend Rev Peterson and he said that he would love to have you come and spend a month preaching at his church and that he loved a young preacher who had the guts to talk directly about hell and eternal consequences. I thought all of my problems with you were solved. Then you go there and deliver a bunch of confusing stories that seem to skirt around the issues. Half the congregation walks out and you end up in the car park with the remainder explaining yourself. Rev Peterson is still rope-able, he not only thinks you are unable to preach the gospel he has serious concerns over your theology.

The Incident Last Sunday

And now to the straw that has broken the camel’s back. You know as well as I that it is so hard to get a Preacher like Pastor John Rosetti to speak at our church, he is world class. Ok even for me he can be a little ‘prosperity focused’ but he is such a gifted speaker and the Church was packed. When you overturned his merchandise tables I wanted the ground to eat me up. The damage that you caused to our ATM cash machine in the lobby will put the church back around $10,000. I can put up a with a lot, but vandalism I cannot. Your actions were a direct undermining of my leadership.

So I am writing to inform you that we will be making you redundant. I have with great difficulty convinced the Church board to not press charges and we will not be referring the matter to the police.

I am so heart broken, you are one of the most gifted young men I have met. I find you maddeningly frustrating. I have barely slept since last sunday, I keep wracking my brain trying to figure out why you are like this. I wonder if it is your age, 32 is pretty young for a pastor role at a church our size. I can’t help think that it must be mental health issues, probably the bi polar condition that Dr Blackby referred to.

We don’t want to turf you out on the street so we will be giving you a generous severance package, plus Jane has sent you a card that the staff has signed which includes a gift voucher to Brysons Christian Bookstore.

It will always perplex me why things did not work out. In your heart I  know that you mean the best.

Sadly Jesus we must ask that you never come back to our Church.

Yours in him

         Pastor Craig Clements

Who made God?

Around a year ago Jemima (now 3.5yrs old) wanted to know where things were made.  She pointed at things around the room, and more often than not my answer was "China".  She then pointed at her little sister, and wondered if she was made in China too.  Now Jemima keeps asking me who made God.  Not the easiest question for a Christian to answer.  I wonder if it is tough for any monotheistic religion.  I generally say "I don't know, God just is."  Not the most satisfactory answer, but the best I can do just now in the midst of putting away washing, cleaning and the general busyness of domestic life.  Jemima responded by asking if perhaps there was another god, who was in everyone's hearts too.  This god might have made the other one. This morning Jemima again asked me if there were two gods.  Fascinating questions from a three year old, and interesting that she was still thinking about it a day later.

So who did make God?  And how on earth do you explain this to a little girl?  The simplest response is that God just always was, is and has been.  This argument is presented here.  Attempts to answer this question seem to be wrapped up in philosophical understandings about time, logical processes of elimination of less probable answers, and a myriad of other approaches.  I am not really sure what to think.  At the moment I am probably quite happy to say simply to myself and to Jemima "I don't know." I am ok with a little mystery.

Splash

Splash
Originally uploaded by nomadic eyes

This photo represents the best of about 150 attempts today to take an even semi-decent photo of water splashing. It is a learning shot, and I feel as though the red in the background is a bit distracting. However, to take it out would leave the foreground hints of red seem misplaced. It was great fun and I look forward to getting better at this kind of photography.

Whales, lions and the Messiah

Scott has raised some interesting ideas on his blog concerning narratives and the bible.  Scott commented on the Story Book Bible, a retelling of the popular stories of the bible targeted at children aged 4+.  I bought this book for its illustrations, clear story telling that reads as though it was meant to be read out loud to children.  It is descriptive and poetic, and yes, as Scott points out, does tend to weave in the story of Jesus throughout the old testament tales.  But is this a bad thing?  I do believe that OT stories should be read as stand alone books.  But then they should be read as part of the bigger picture of the OT, and they should be read in the light of the NT.  And they should be read for their literary style.  It is only as we grapple with the books, stories, documentaries, poems and dramas that make up the OT in this varied way that we will begin to tap into all that they have to offer.  I do believe that the Bible books are linked in some way.  If they do not each contribute to the whole in some way, then why are they included?  That of course raises a whole other body of questioning that I don't have time or energy to ponder right now.  If we believe in the meta narrative of God who desires relationship with humanity, then the journey through the old testament from the turbulent relationship between God and Israel through to the remarkable life of Jesus  gives us a glimpse into how that is played out in the human and God story.  So for me, explaining this a little in the Story book bible is helpful for kids to see that the stories are more than just about whales and lions, boats and giants.

Red flowers

Red flowers
Originally uploaded by nomadic eyes

rainy days

rainy days
Originally uploaded by nomadic eyes

I love reflections.

Ballgown

ballgown
Originally uploaded by nomadic eyes

This is not much of a photo, and I was bitterly disappointed to find that my droplet of water was blurred. However, I have uploaded it because reminds me of the soft flowing fabric folds of a ballgown. This was taken at Wilsons Prom during my first precious childfree hour with my new macro lens. It reminds me I have much to learn, and that there is now a whole new world of photgraphic possibilities open to me.

His name is Fatao

In my last post I began documenting my thoughts about shopping ethically.  I mentioned that I choose fair trade products where possible.  I get to purchase my (usually) luxury items relatively free of guilt.  I may spend more, but feel justified in doing so as I trust the logo means what it says - that the raw producers have been paid fairly for their goods.  However, next Monday 's episode of Four Corners on the  ABC is called "Chocolate - the bitter truth".  Unfortunately the bitter truth is about Fair Trade, and difficulties within its implementation.  You can read more about it here.

The title comes from the blurb introducing the episode - Fatao is a twelve year old boy who works twelve hours per day without pay to supply cocoa for the chocolate we eat.

 ...BBC reporter Paul Kenyon went undercover trying to trace the beans that went into Fairtrade products. What he found will shock many chocolate lovers. In a number of locations he found the cocoa bean suppliers approved by the Fairtrade initiative did in fact use child labour. Some were exposed by a Fairtrade audit, others were exposed by the BBC investigation.

This disturbs me greatly.  Clearly the Fair Trade scheme is not working as it should, and requires far tighter monitoring and policing.  I will be interested to see what is revealed in the documentary.  And what can we do?  Buying Fair Trade items is a start, but clearly not enough.  It is easy to say it is primarily the issue of traders, sellers, corporations.  But ultimately it is our money that they are after.

Coke side of life

I have just come back from a weekend in Daylesford that was wonderful, but would have been so much better without sick children, husband, bucketing rain whilst in our tent...  However, I did get to attend a workshop or two, and the one on ethical shopping has stayed with me.  It is something I have always been interested in - I have intentionally sought out animal cruelty free products for years - it is now habit.   I choose fair trade where possible, and like the idea of organic food.  However, the almighty dollar is still the primary decider for most of my purchases.

However, a little peruse of this site  challenges complacency.  Ok, maybe it is not so easy for me to pay an extra two or three dollars for an item.  But what price is to be placed on the abuse of people, animals, and the environment? If I saw people providing slave labour down the street making products for my latter purchasing pleasure,  there is no way that I would buy them.   But because it is on the other side of the world, out of my sight, and something I am (or choose to be) largely ignorant of, I don't generally experience much in the way of a crisis of conscience.

Here is an example - sorry for the long quote:

Coca-Cola Company is perhaps the most widely recognized corporate symbol on the planet. The company also leads in the abuse of workers' rights, assassinations, water privatization, and worker discrimination. Between 1989 and 2002, eight union leaders from Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia were killed after protesting the company's labor practices. Hundreds of other Coca-Cola workers who have joined or considered joining the Colombian union SINALTRAINAL have been kidnapped, tortured, and detained by paramilitaries who intimidate workers to prevent them from unionizing. In Turkey, 14 Coca-Cola truck drivers and their families were beaten severely by Turkish police hired by the company, while protesting a layoff of 1,000 workers from a local bottling plant in 2005.

In India, Coca-Cola destroys local agriculture by privatizing the country's water resources. In Plachimada, Kerala, Coca-Cola extracted 1.5 million liters of deep well water, which they bottled and sold under the names Dasani and BonAqua. The groundwater was severely depleted, affecting thousands of communities with water shortages and destroying agricultural activity. As a result, the remaining water became contaminated with high chloride and bacteria levels, leading to scabs, eye problems, and stomach aches in the local population. Water shortages have occurred in Varanasi, Thane, and Tamil Nadu as well. The company is also guilty of reselling its plants' industrial waste to farmers as fertilizers, despite its containing hazardous lead and cadmium.

Coca-Cola is one of the most discriminatory employers in the world. In the year 2000, 2,000 African-American employees in the U.S. sued the company for race-based disparities in pay and promotions. In México, Coca-Cola FEMSA, the largest Coca-Cola bottler in Latin America, fired a senior bottling manager for being gay. Finally, by regularly denying health insurance to employees and their families, Coca Cola has failed to help stop the spread of AIDS in Africa. The company is one of the continent's largest private employers, yet only partially covers expensive medicines, while not covering generic medicines at all.

The above violations refer to the Coca Cola Company in America.  Phew Aussie Coke is okay.  However, the American company owns 30% of Coca Cola South Pacific Pty Ltd and Coca Cola Amatil.  So like it or not, some of our coke purchases funds the above atrocities.  And if you don't drink Coke,  products like Pump (bottled water), Grinders Coffee,  and SPC Ardmona, are all owned by Coca Cola Amatil.

So I am now at a crossroads.  I can choose to keep spending as I have been without consideration of these issues, or begin to make changes.  I went to the supermarket on Tuesday morning and took along the iphone app released by the Ethical Consumer Guide.  It took me longer to shop, and some items had no ethical options.  Interestingly, I spent less.  It marks the beginning of at least being more informed.  Change of spending habit, however small, will make a difference.  Cadbury's release of a fair trade chocolate bar is a good example of the power of our spending.

Dawn trinity

Dawn trinity
Originally uploaded by nomadic eyes

I don't often see the dawn. But when I do it is beautiful. This was taken at Hamer Aboretum, a particularly beautiful place to see the sun greet a new day.

Shadows in blue

Shadows in blue
Originally uploaded by nomadic eyes

Ice cold blues for a chilly wintry Mt Dandenong day. I mainly took this photo for the droplets of water.

Pointed.

Pointed.
Originally uploaded by nomadic eyes

This photo was taken at the Olinda Rhododendron Gardens. A play with lines and shadows.

New Beginning

I have been blogging for many years now - mainly here, and feel it is time for change.  Most of my former blogging has been book and movie reviews, media commentary, issue based rants.  I expect that I will do a little of that here - ranting passionately about things that capture me is part of who I am.  However, I decided to start something new to give me the freedom to wander into other places with this blog.  Photography, my girls' art and funny little life insights, things that capture my creative eye, may also make it into this digital record of the next yet to be determined blogging season.  I have felt fresh out of inspiration - out of season if you like.  This may just be a new beginning.

Grass Tree

Grass Tree
Originally uploaded by nomadic eyes

I took this photo at Wilson's Prom, around seven months after this pristine piece of Victorian wilderness was ravaged by wildfire. These trees only flower after fire. Needless to say, the drive into the prom provided the viewer with an endless sea of these peculiar flowers. Beauty from devastation. I liked the lines.