Asking for it

One of Sydney's minority religious leaders apparently made a comment recently in a sermon about women. I haven't read the actual comment, but I understand the implication is that some women bring sex attacks on themselves by the way they dress.

Of course, people are outraged about it. But most are looking at it from a woman's point of view. What his statement means about men is equally offensive.

The implications of what he said are that: men are unable to control themselves when they see a provocatively-dressed woman; women have control over men's impulses and actions just by the clothes they wear or don't wear; and men are not responsible for their actions, women are.

When it comes down to it, what he means is that men are really no better than domesticated animals - they are generally well behaved, but if you leave some uncovered food around, you should expect the beast in them to come out! After all, they can't help it.

Content, whatever!

I have been reading through Philippians with my friend over the last few weeks. It's been delightful to read, think through and explore this marvellous letter.

This week we got to the idea of contentment.

How do you define it? Perhaps it's easier to say what it's not. It's not greed. It's not grasping for more. It's not obsession.

It's also not having no needs at all, or saying that needs you do have don't matter. Paul says he can be content, even while in need. But he points out that contentment is not necessarily part of having all your needs met either! Contentment is not tied to circumstances.

Contentment is something that we can learn. It might take some time to learn. It's not going to be something that is easy to grasp.

Perhaps a good way to define it is to look back earlier in the chapter to where Paul talks about 'the peace that passes understanding'. Such peace is a gift from God, and comes after we give our anxieties to him.

Perhaps the beginning of contentment is seeing ourselves in perspective to God, and being at peace to let him be in control. He is in the end the one who gives strength. We don't have it on our own.


Philippians 4:10-13 10 I rejoice greatly in the Lord that at last you have renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you have been concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. 11 I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do everything through him who gives me strength.

You'll be back for more

Here's a delicious recipe which came out of a last minute cupboard-cleaning baking effort a few weeks ago. Most of the time my "oh dear I don't have enough ingredients" experiments don't work out, but I'm quite proud of this one.

Apricot crunch balls

Melt some butter or margarine (50g?)

Stir in:
1 cup chopped dried apricots
1 cup sultanas
1 cup crunchy all-bran, a little crushed
2 tbsp flour
1/2 cup coconut

Squeeze the mixture into balls and place on a tray and refrigerate.

Melt some chocolate (milk, dark or white) and spoon over the balls. Refrigerate to set.

Say it better

I once had vague ideas of starting a business dedicated to helping people get their message across better. Not an advertising agency, but a communication enhancement centre. And I'll tell you, we Christians need to enhance our communication!

We have the greatest message in the world - God's unrelenting love, grace and mercy poured out to us in extravagant ways. But so often, we present that message through long-winded, boring speeches.

Our message says 'born again'. Our method says 'boring again'.

Good teaching and learning involves these things:

hearing
seeing
feeling
touching
tasting
moving
doing
questioning
thinking
participating
speaking
telling stories
engaging with people
thinking thoughts
knowing facts
making deductions
feeling emotions
stirring passions
translating his experience across to my experience
reflecting
stopping

A lot of the time, preachers will stop at the first one on my list - hearing. And they sometimes don't get to the last one until 40 or 50 minutes later, without using the others on the list.

Lecture-style Christian talks are often great. They frequently include marvellous, deep reflections on the text and great applications to life.

But I think the Christian subculture I belong to has the mind-set that says listening to (or delivering) a long Christian lecture is the ultimate in 'serious' Christianity. If you can do either of those, you are taking the Bible seriously and you are growing in your faith.

My point is, however, that there are other ways to learn and engage with the same content more effectively than sitting through a long talk.

I'd be interested in your ideas for how you'd like to see Christian teaching and learning done. What are the benefits of the current model? What do you think we miss by not doing it differently? How could it practically work in a church situation? How can we use more interactive models of teaching, but still keep the input from people who have good insights into context, meaning and application (traditionally the preachers)?

Are you really still you?

In the last two days I've had two wonderful emails from very old friends. They are girls I went to school with in Pakistan, one of whom was my first ever 'best friend'. I haven't seen them since I was 18, and that's more years ago now than I like to admit to.

I was absolutely delighted to hear from them, and a little sad that I do not know them now as adults. While we are still friends, and will probably always call ourselves friends, I don't know them as I would like to.

It brings up these questions: are they still the same people they were when I knew them? Does the fact that I was close to them once mean that I can still say, "I know them well"? Am I still the same person I was 30 years ago? 10 years ago? a month ago? yesterday?

Do our experiences shape us over and above our natural personality and character? Would we still recognise each other despite the diverging of our paths and the passing of the years?

Friends who met as adults may not find these questions as challenging. Is it the change from childhood to adulthood that matters most?

Getting to know you...

I've always had secret dreams of going somewhere and just living there for the rest of my life, getting old with the same people, getting to know them well, and having friendships that last the years.

But the way things have worked out for me, I just don't think that will ever happen. Instead, I have the privilege of stopping for periods here and there, getting to know new friends, and then saying goodbye, to move on to another group of people.

Both situations have their benefits and drawbacks. If you were born, grew up and died in the same community, you might have wonderful, lifelong friendships and loyalties, but you might not have room in your life for new people. Horizons could become smaller than they need to be.

If, like me, you have moved on and on and on, you miss out on the comfortableness of having old friends around you, and you often feel like you don't really belong anywhere. Even though friendships can last across distances, it can take a lot more work to keep them up, and the proximity effect is lessened.

However, the benefits are certainly the privilege of moving between exciting and wonderful groups of people, learning something from each group and bringing it to the next group. It makes for a more challenging experience and broader outlook.

I think I know how God feels

That's quite an arrogant assumption, but I'll tell you why.

I decided it would be nice to treat the seven year-old to an icecream. We went to the shop, she chose a delicious banana paddle pop and then turned to me and said,

"You're the best and nicest mummy in the whole world because you buy me icecreams."

Yeah right.

If she'd stopped to think, she might have realised that the reason I bought her the icecream was because I am the best and nicest. I am not the best and nicest because I buy her icecream.

It's easy to confuse character with gifts. To appreciate the gift more than the giver. But gifts always come about because of the character of the giver.

God must get annoyed!

Daniel 1 & 2: Where we fit in to this

The end of my talk on Daniel 1 & 2. See previous three posts for the first part.

What can the story of Daniel say to us, here, in a relatively peaceful, mildly secular, democratic country?

I wonder if you’d agree with me that just as in Daniel’s time, the powerful forces in our society would like to paint God in the general position of being a loser. Maybe not completely defeated, but certainly marginalised, slightly old-fashioned, eccentric – even cute - but not very relevant for those people who run everything important.

Knowledge of God doesn’t cut it when it comes to budget time. Worship of God doesn’t run the economy. Following God is one of those optional extras. It’s nice if you have it, but it’s not the essential part of life.

Or is it?

What does the Bible tell us about the future? The book of Revelation paints a fearsome picture of God as judge, ultimate king and amazing victor when everything on earth is finished. One day, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

It sounds impressive. But if God is in such a loserish state now, if things look so bad for him here, how is this victory going to be achieved?

You can probably see that I’m going to paint a parallel picture here.

In the passage, God uses two things as he goes from apparent defeat to victory: one, his people, undefiled and wise, and two, his revelation.

Today, God uses two things as he will go from apparent defeat to ultimate victory: us, his people, undefiled and wise, and two, his revelation.

Us – God’s people

What does it mean for us to be ‘undefiled’ or to live Christianly in our culture? As we know there were a number of things Daniel could have stood up against - the name change, the study program, even just going to Babylon. In the end, he chose food – and the result for him was good health. What will you stand up for? How will you decide?

One principle could be to know for yourself like Daniel. Do you know what keeps you healthy – spiritually healthy? Take a stand on those things. Read the Bible, go regularly to church for Christian fellowship. Prioritize your life so that the good, godly things get done first. Get rid of the spiritual rubbish that defiles up your heart and mind.

God’s people must also be wise. Let’s just look quickly at some of the ways Daniel was wise.

The first kind of wisdom Daniel had was wisdom in how to get his point across. He had the ability to convince people quietly and talk them around to his point of view. He wasn’t confrontational – he used his contacts, and he made sure he was relating to people who could help him.

It would have been too easy for Daniel to go straight to the king and say, “I’m not eating your food! It defiles me.” He wouldn’t have lasted long… but he could have claimed he was being persecuted for the sake of the gospel. Be smart. Don’t create confrontation if you can uphold your principle via the back door first!

He also had wisdom to know how much he was going to be part of his new world, and how much he was going to be distinctive. There are three possible reactions to pressure to conform to an alien culture. And we as Christians are in an alien culture every day!

Firstly: you can assimilate completely. So you look like everybody else, sound like them, even think like them. It certainly relieves the pressure you can feel of being an outsider.

But if Daniel had done this, he would have been giving up his loyalty to God. If we do this, it will make us feel better for a little while but we will lose our faith, and we will lose our Christian influence.

Secondly: you can withdraw into a kind of ghetto of your own culture as far as possible, and avoid the pressure.

But if Daniel had withdrawn completely and refused to be part of the court, he would probably have been killed, and he would have lost any chance of witnessing for his God. If we do this to a large extent we lose any influence we can have on people around us. Long term this approach makes your faith unreal and irrelevant – and it justifies the surrounding culture saying, “Well, Christians have nothing to contribute.”

Three: like Daniel, you see Christ as the transformer of culture. You are involved with, but not completely part of the culture, and you are confronting it with the aim of seeing God transform it.

We need to learn about our culture, like Daniel did, so we will know how best to influence it. And by the way, he wasn’t slow to get his friends into important positions. If you have an opportunity to have a public position of responsibility, take it and pray for wisdom so that you can be an influence for God.

This is where it is so important to read and study the Bible to understand what it means to be what Jesus called the ‘salt and light’ of the world. We need to use God’s wisdom from the Scriptures in living in our culture every day.

The revelation of Christ (to answer the unanswerable)

We live in this world, God’s people, hopefully both undefiled and wise. But that’s not the sole purpose of our existence. Like Daniel, we have a revelation from God too, and when we share it, it answers the unanswerable questions of the people around us today.

What are the unanswerable questions people ask? Perhaps you have asked them, or are still asking them.
- What is the purpose of it all?
- Why do I feel incomplete?
- Who’s behind it?
- Why can’t I get rid of my guilt?
- Why is there so much wrong and evil, and yet so much good and beauty in the world?
- How does it all make sense?

There are lots of astrologers, magicians, wise people, gurus, management consultants, life coaches, journalists and TV personalities who give some really great but pat answers to the questions.

Or who use the questions to make money by selling products as the answers.

Or who try to distract us from asking the questions so we won’t feel bad.

But I think we all know, like the magicians and astrologers in Nebuchadnezzar’s time knew, that no-one can really answer these unanswerable questions. It was probably the most truthful thing they ever came out with when they said these words:

"There is not a man on earth who can do what the king asks… What the king asks is too difficult. No one can reveal it to the king except the gods, and they do not live among people."

It is true. No human can answer these questions. But the God who lived among people can both truly define the question and give the answer.

Jesus Christ, God’s son, who lived on earth, and died and rose again for the salvation of the world is the revelation of God for us here today. He is the one who tells us just who we are, he is the one who forgives our sin, he is the one who puts us right with God, and he is the very image of God, God’s likeness. He is for us the answer to our unanswerable question.

And it is him that we are to share with our friends, our neighbours, our culture. Jesus Christ, the answer.

We are God’s people, undefiled, wise and with a revelation of Jesus Christ to carry to the world, so that tomorrow, as yesterday, people will say,

"Surely your God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries.”

God was never a loser. He has always been in control, loving us, and wanting all people everywhere to turn to him, be saved and give him the glory. The story of Daniel is all about God. The story of you and me is also all about God.

Let’s pray for his grace and strength to be his people, undefiled and wise, and carrying to others his revelation of Christ, for his glory.

Daniel 1 & 2: God's revelation

In the last two posts, we’ve seen that God used his people – who were undefiled and wise – as he went from loser to victor amongst the Babylonians. But the second thing he used to declare his name was what we call revelation - making known something to people that they could not have known on their own.

We don’t know what the time gap between chapters 1 and 2 are, but sometime later, Daniel and his friends are pretty well entrenched in palace life. And the king, that renowned tyrannical, power-hungry despot, Nebuchadnezzar, had a bad dream.

It was such a bad dream that he wanted to know what it meant. He called in all his wise men, magicians and astrologers to ask them.

And so that he would know that the interpretation was right, he thought he’d throw in a little proof-challenge, as power-hungry despots are apt to do occasionally: "Tell me my dream and then interpret it. Otherwise I’ll kill all of you."

Nebuchadnezzar was looking to his wise men to answer the unanswerable. To solve the unsolvable. To fathom the unfathomable.

And of course, not unreasonably, no-one could do it.

This is what the wise men and the magicians said to the king in chapter 2, verses 10 and 11:

"There is not a man on earth who can do what the king asks… What the king asks is too difficult. No one can reveal it to the king except the gods, and they do not live among men."

That of course is true. But Daniel knows the God who can reveal it to the king. He prays, asks his friends to pray, and seeks the answer from God. And he comes through. God is the source of the solution.

Daniel makes sure that the king knows this. In V24-28 He’s careful to tell the king that it’s not his own cleverness, but God’s revelation. He certainly doesn't take the glory for himself.

The details of the dream are interesting and worth more study on your own perhaps, but I’m not going into them here. What I'm more concerned with is that God began this story looking like a loser, defeated by the most impressive army ever seen on earth. He finishes up this story the ultimate winner. He is the only one who has the answer to the unanswerable question posed by the most powerful man on earth.

And Nebuchadnezzar says these humble words: "Surely your God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries.”

Daniel 1 & 2: God's people - undefiled and wise

This follows on from yesterday's post, looking at how God went from an apparent loser to ultimate victor in the first two chapters of Daniel. How did he do it? Well, firstly he used his people.

Let’s look at God’s people first, and we’ll notice two things about them. Firstly, they are undefiled. And secondly they are wise.

In verse 3 some young Israelites were brought into the Babylonian court. What were they there for? To assimilate into the new culture, learn the language and customs. They were expected to go from being Israelites and God’s people to becoming completely loyal to their new overlords. Basically, to becoming Babylonians with new names and identities.

(Interestingly their new names all had something to do with the Babylonian gods.)

Now in verse 4 let’s notice that Daniel and his friends did not resist this. They kicked up no stink being captured, being brought in. They even submitted to the new names. They were ok with learning about the Babylonian culture – and this could have included magic and divination. On the outside, it looked like they were well on their way to getting new Babylonian identities and leaving their loyalty to God behind.

But in verse 8 we see that they are certainly not completely Babylonian. They took a stand for God. And oddly enough, what they stood against was the food!

For whatever reason, they believed it defiled them. It may have been kosher rules, may have been the possibility that the food was offered to the Babylonian gods beforehand. Commentators seem to be unsure as to the exact reason.

However, regardless of Daniel's reasoning, the fact that he stood up against it shows he and his friends still knew who they were – God’s people. Even though he appeared defeated, they still knew what he expected of them – to be pure and undefiled.

Daniel may have decided not to eat the food, but he had a few hoops to jump. And here is where we see the wisdom of God’s people.

Instead of just declaring his stand as a protest, Daniel decided to go through the right channels and ask permission to eat his veggies. But he hit a snag: the official wasn’t going to allow it. Daniel was unfazed. He found someone else to ask, with a different approach this time: “Test us and you’ll see”.

He was successful. And throughout the rest of the two chapters, we see Daniel’s wisdom in the way he deals with everyone from the king, to the guards, to his friends.

God's people were undefiled and wise, but they also had a job to do. Wait for the next post to find out what it was!

Daniel 1 & 2: God, from loser to victor

The next few entries are all from a talk I gave recently on Daniel 1 and 2. My mum commented afterwards that she's never heard those two chapters put together in a sermon, but I think they go together neatly if you see it as the story of God in Babylon, rather than the story of Daniel in Babylon!


God is a loser. At least, that’s how it looks in the first two verses of Daniel chapter 1.

The tiny little nation of Judah was besieged and under threat from Babylon, the biggest international superpower of the time. The Babylonians were fierce, ruthless and terrifying. It looked like they would just eat God’s people for breakfast and spit out their trophies.

And in fact, in verse two, some of their trophies are things from the temple. The great God of the Israelites, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Moses, the living God, according to his people – it was his temple that was desecrated, despoiled and devastated..

Yes, to everyone looking on, to the world and the nations nearby, Israel and Judah’s God looks like a loser. He is defeated. He is vanquished. The might of the Babylonians has it all over him.

It’s not a good start for God in the book of Daniel. Or is it?

Have a look more closely in verse two. There are several characters here: the babylonian king - Nebuchadnezzar, the Judean King - Jehoiakim and God.

In this second verse, we see what the book of Daniel is all about: the Lord. "The Lord delivered Judah into Nebuchadnezzar’s hands."

He starts out, painted as a loser to the outside world. But have a look at the end of chapter 2. In verse 47, the very king who desecrated the temple and stole God’s things, the king who vanquished Israel’s God and made him appear small and ridiculous to the world is saying these incredible words:

"Surely your God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries.”

How did this happen? How did God go from defeat to triumph? From ridicule to renown? There are two things to see, and we'll explore them in the next few blogs. One, he did it by using his people. Two, he did it by revelation.

Minimalism or extravagance

Sometimes I kind of go along in my Christian life on a minimalist setting.

I love as much as I need to, but no more. I'm as joyful as I need to be, but no more. I'm as patient as I need to be, but no more.

I don't expend too much energy overdoing it.

Perseverance means plodding. Kindness means kind of. Self-control means a tightly controlled self.

But reading the fourth chapter of Philippians the other day, I was struck by the extravagance, the wastefulness and the overflowingness of Paul's instructions to the Philippian church.

Firstly, he goes overboard about how much he loves them. "I love', 'I long for', 'I plead with'... the verbs are all pretty extreme. And how often do you call someone 'my joy and my crown'?

Then he repeats what he's already said multiple times about rejoicing! Not just a little bit of happiness, but joy and rejoicing.

He affirms God's desire to answer prayers, to calm anxiety, to give a peace that's beyond understanding. And then he challenges his readers to fill their minds with all good things!

Philippians 4:8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-- think about such things.

It's quite an extravagantly wonderful thought to imagine my mind full to the brim of all good, true, pure, lovely, admirable, noble, excellent and praiseworthy things. Wow!

It's a big spur to me to eschew Christian minimalism, and embrace the reality of God's extravagant character.

Mrs whoever

The news this week has featured a former prime minister's wife criticizing a current prime minister's wife. It's apparently something she said 'off the cuff' a while back. But it has now been reported in a new biography and it's making headlines and discussion shows all over the radio.

Mrs Whitlam said that Mrs Howard 'should have done more' in her role as the wife of the PM. She could have started foundations or charities, she could have been more vocal on public issues (presumably not political issues), she could have lent her support to various causes.

There has been lots of talk about whether the criticism is justified, and how much Mrs Howard has done, and precisely what Mrs Whitlam did when she was the PMs wife, but I haven't heard anyone say in various media discussions yet that Mrs Howard is entitled to do just what Mrs Howard wants to do!

I take it a bit personally, because the PMs wife is the only real parallel I have can think of to a minister's wife, which is what I will be in about three months time. She's the wife of a public leader who is seen by the people he leads. Like a church minister, being the PM is the sort of job which one person does, but the two people are seen together in it.

No-one cares about what their local doctor's wife does. No-one thinks about the school principal's spouse does. No-one takes issue with the wife of the soccer club. But the wife of the minister is in the public eye, just because her husband does what he does. Everyone keeps talking about the 'role' of the wife of the PM, but no-one really wants to define what it is.

Poor Janette Howard. She might not be the sort who wants to go public on lots of things. And for the people who expect that, she won't ever be a success. If she was a second Hillary Clinton, she'd cop flak for getting involved in her husband's job. Whatever she does, she'll never win.

I think it's really slack of Margaret Whitlam to criticise. She for one ought to know how hard the 'role' is to fulfill. And it's not up to her to say what Janette Howard should or shouldn't do.

Time

I'm finding I'm getting panicky about day to day life with my little boy with Autistic Spectrum Disorder.

"I'm not doing enough! I'm wasting hours and days and weeks that I could be helping him," I think, even though I'm spending most of my child-free time researching autism and remediation (apart from the time I write this blog of course!)

It was helpful to read this quote:

"If I don't succeed today, there's always tomorrow. And the day after that."

Prayer: relationship over request

Can you pray about things that have already happened?

For example: If I have a job interview at 11am, I might ask you to pray that I'll be calm and clear at that time. You might be keen to do it, but forget all about it until 12, when my interview is over and done with.

So: if you pray at 12, still not knowing the outcome of the interview, will God treat your request 'retrospectively'? Is he able to answer the prayer, even though the time has passed?

This question actually came up in a theological discussion I had a few days ago. (Amongst other things we were talking about God, sovereignty, time, omniscience and guidance, but those topics might provide fuel for additional blog entries, so I'll leave it there.)

My take on the whole thing is that the question itself is irrelevent because it highlights a flawed view of prayer. Its focus is on the request, whereas the real key to prayer is the relationship.

I see it from the view of a parent/child relationship.

My little daughter loves biscuits for morning tea. I love to give them to her because they make her happy. But I also want to teach her to ask me for them, rather than just giving them out. Getting her to make the request teaches her that we are in a relationship. It's good for her to be able to acknowledge her own desires, and as well, acknowledge my part in caring for her and fulfilling those desires.

Typically, at morning tea time, she'll come to me and say, "Mum, could I please have a biscuit?". I'll say, "Sure, here you are," and give it to her.

Now on the odd occasion, she might come in a little late, or forget to ask. Sometimes, I'll beat her to it, putting her biscuit in a plate on the table, all ready for her. I am pleased to do it, because I know our relationship is such that she would normally ask and acknowledge me because her heart is turned towards me.

So with prayer: the technicalities of the requests we make of God are almost irrelevent. What is more important is whether our hearts are turned towards God.

Is it our habit to turn to God, to articulate our requests and desires, and to acknowledge God's care and generosity to us? Is it our delight to ask and to thank and to remember him in everything?

If the relationship is there, thinking about the specific requests and the answers to those requests becomes nit-picking, cold and artificial.

Quote

All arrogance is based on ignorance.

Imperfection: whose problem is it really?

My little boy has Autistic Spectrum Disorder. The paediatrician confirmed it last week. And since then, I've been thinking about human imperfection.

Why is it such a big deal to have a child who isn't typical or normal? Why does every prospective parent say 'I don't mind what it is, just as long as it's healthy...'? Why do we all secretly cringe when we see someone who's disabled or challenged or disturbed?

I have spent the last two or three months feeling sad, heavy and dismayed by the idea that my child is going to struggle in life with his understanding and communication. But stopping to analyse the fears I have for him, I can see that I'm most afraid of other people's reactions to him. I'm worried that he'll be bullied, excluded, laughed at, tormented or just plain ignored.

How do I know he will suffer these things? Because I know my own heart, and I know my own sinful reactions to others who are different from me. I have bullied, excluded, laughed at, tormented and just plain ignored people who were 'imperfect'. And in doing so, I have shown my own imperfections, which are far more serious, far more deadly and far more vile than any physical or mental disability could ever be. The real human imperfection is the sinful, unloving heart that each one of us carries inside.

If we humans were truly able to love, having a disabled child would not be a cause of sorrow. It might create a few extra challenges, but parents would not fear for their children, and societies would care for them.

Perhaps the 'imperfect people' are part of the world in order to show up everybody else's imperfection.

Love isn't always easy. It isn't always convenient. And the objects of love are not always attractive. I'm stunned again to think how great is God's love for us that he loves us, who are truly and thoroughly disabled, giving up his own son to make us perfect and beautiful in his sight.

God put tear ducts in our eyes because grief is best expressed when we are looking into the eyes of another person.*

People, family, fellowship, the body - whatever you call it - are the greatest source of love and comfort in hard times. We have experienced so much support in the last week. Cards in the mail, loving emails, phone calls and even some yummy fruit slice delivered to our door. It's a privilege to be part of Christ's family and experience love in the flesh.

Yes, our little fella does have Autistic Spectrum Disorder, but it's a good thing to be able to put a name to his quirky habits and now start working to get him some help.

It's been a temptation to me to isolate myself from others when I've felt bad, but the love and support that's out there has reminded me that God gives us people for good reasons.


*an idea pinched from a favourite book How People Grow by Cloud and Townsend.

Another great poem

When what begins, ends
You are faced with a new start
A desperate challenge, a challenged life.
But never forget

You will always live with joy
In the cathedral of your days
And will always be loved, a yearning love
By its maker.

A really great poem

Let us have faith

Security is mostly a superstition.
It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.
Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.
Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.
To keep our faces towards change and behave like free spirits
In the presence of fate is strength indefatigable.

~ Helen Keller