Conversations@Intersections

Un-doing poverty

2012-02-28T08:46:00.001+13:00

"We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty."

--Mother Teresa

- Posted on the go

Sadness

2012-02-25T10:47:00.001+13:00

Sadness, like a smile, can creep across a face, seemingly unbidden.

Invest in BOY, the NZ movie.

2012-02-24T08:48:00.001+13:00

BOY! The autobiographical NZ film that everyone should see.
http://www.boythefilm.com/

Become an investor!
Participate via Kickstarter
- Posted on the go

Badminton on an ark

2012-02-23T10:48:00.001+13:00

Noah:

Day 18
Note to self: next time I’m on a long cruise and I want to play badminton and I only have one birdie, play below deck. I’m so stupid.

From Wittenburg Door

- Posted on the go

Turn of a phrase

2012-02-20T23:17:00.002+13:00

I like a good turn of phrase; a sentence so well crafted that you can actually see, smell or taste the thing being described. Not many writers can do such a thing.

Steve Toltz does so often in A Fraction of the Whole. Toltz is a newish writer on the scene, an Australian with an interesting perspective. An old timer who paints pictures with words too is Graham Greene. My book club is reading A Burnt Out Case right now.

"The pouches under his eyes were like purses that contained the smuggled memories of a disappointing life."

"There is a time in life when a man with a little acting ability is able to deceive even himself."

from A Burnt Out Case, by Graham Greene

The book is not a comedy, more a commentary on a disillusioned life, with some fascinating descriptive phrases I admire.

Hospitality & Vulnerability

2012-02-16T16:52:00.000+13:00

"WE CANNOT SEPARATE THE GOODNESS AND THE BEAUTY of hospitality from its difficulty. In a paradoxical way, hospitality is simultaneously mundane and sturdy, mysterious and fragile.
As a practice it involves soup and bread, blankets and beds. But it always involves more than these, and certain tensions internal to hospitality make it fragile vulnerable to distortion and misuse."
Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition
by CD Pohl & PJ Buck

- Posted on the go using BlogPress

Compassion based on our commonalities

2012-02-16T15:11:00.000+13:00

We have more organs in common with other humans than we have different.

Essentially we're all in the same waka, canoe or station wagon.

Why do we focus on the differences?

- Posted on the go using BlogPress

What am I living for?

2012-02-01T12:47:00.004+13:00

"If you want to identify me ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, and ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the things I want to live for. Between those two answers you can determine the identity of any person."

~ Thomas Merton, The Man in the Sycamore Tree

Loyalty

2012-01-31T10:38:00.001+13:00

A sports commentator on the radio this morning actually said he was now a fan of ---- team because they were winning.

While I know it is far more fun to follow a winning team, I'd say my identity is intact enough to remain loyal even when my team isn't winning.

Fickle is cheap and nasty whether it's in spiritual alliances, human relationships or sports.

I'm a Colts fan, and while I hope Peyton will be great again, I'll be a Colts fan anyway. In the meantime, I'll cheer for his little brother.

For better or worse is the kind of follower, friend and fan I'd like to be.

My FAVOURITE team used to be tartan, but amalgamation has caused a displacement of pride & allegiance there. s-i-g-h
My baseball team is Red, even when they lose.
My football team is Blue, even when they are last on the table.
My rugby team is Black, all black, and they rarely lose.

- Posted using BlogPress

She jumps

2012-01-27T10:29:00.001+13:00

She jumps.

No one is watching.

Doesn't seem to matter to her.

There's a personal freedom in what she's doing.

Ouch!

She bends over double to inspect the surface then brushes the trampoline free of debris.

She goes on jumping.

Are you spiritual?

2012-01-23T00:30:00.000+13:00

What do ya reckon?

"Spirituality exists wherever we struggle with the issue of how our lives fit into the greater cosmic scheme of things. This is true even when our questions never give way to specific answers or give rise to specific practices such as prayer or meditation. We encounter spiritual issues every time we wonder where the universe comes from, why we are here, or what happens when we die. We also become spiritual when we become moved by values such as beauty, love, or creativity that seem to reveal a meaning or power beyond our visible world. An idea or practice is "spiritual" when it reveals our personal desire to establish a felt-relationship with the deepest meanings or powers governing life."

A quote from an article comparing and contrasting the concepts spiritual and religious.

Appropriate technology: iPad and poetry?

2012-01-22T19:49:00.001+13:00

•Apple announced platforms for etextbooks today, digital educational materials students will access through their iPads and iPhones.

Imagine how much lighter their backpacks will be! Why carry around the weight of the whole book when you're only using it a chapter at a time?

Would it be okay to read Norton's Anthologies of poetry and literature on an iPad? Seems wrong somehow.

Thoreau? Burns? James Whitcomb Riley?

The weight and thin paper seemed to add something to the experience.

•They read Scripture off an iPhone during worship today.

The worship team wanted passages scattered through the preamble to a song. Just brief bursts of Scripture to highlight, emphasize, punctuate the verses in the song. It was terrific! Their faces hidden behind sheets of white paper wouldn't have been as friendly. Juggling Bibles and finding the many passages while holding mics would have been awkward.

So is it okay to read poetry off an iPad? The times they are a changin'.

Posted on the go.

Marshmallows

2012-01-20T08:02:00.001+13:00

Sitting by the campfire this morning, quiet & peaceful, the aroma of cold ashes in the air.

The sparrows fly in and clean up the dropped marshmallows; those objects of disappointment and tears from last night. The birds peck and pull at the gooey globs. One scrawny frantic bird gets a white glob on top of his beak. It seems to frustrate him, but soon he's back in the fray.

Young boys arrive and run up and down and back and forth on the wooden skateboard ramp: a seemingly senseless expense of energy like hamsters in a wheel. Another boy runs from his family's cluster of tents toward the toilet with his hand over his mouth. I think it all has something to do with the marshmallows.

Gulls arrive but don't seem to care about the white goo. They search the lawn for bits of sausage and larger morsels.

A sparrow notices a pink marshmallow and jumps over to that rock. After a couple of tastes, he flies off. Other birds sample the pink goo, but they don't stay longer than two pecks.

Is it the artificial colouring that puts them off?

Behaviour observed is not behaviour explained, though it's fun to try.

- Posted using BlogPress mobile.

Religion, religious, religiously: words or lifestyles?

2012-01-15T11:53:00.001+13:00

How do you reconcile Amos 5:21 with James 1:27? Look 'em up!

No one verse stands above another. All Scripture must be interpreted by all Scripture.... so what do ya reckon?

Tall Skinny Kiwi, Andrew Jones discusses the viral Youtube video Religion: Love it and Hate it

Discussion going on about a YouTube video released this week with 10 million hits already. "Why I hate religion but love Jesus" by spoken word artist Jefferson Bethke, was also the most watched video on Facebook.

"Jeff seems a nice guy and his message sounds like mine when I was his age. Some people are confused by his take on religion and statements that Jesus came to abolish it.

Here's my take:
Tall Skinny Kiwi Blog

Check out Spiritual, but not religious from BeliefNet's Robert C Fuller

And an older Conversations@Intersections post from 2008, Not Casual, Comfortable or Convenient.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Celebrate Diversity of Opinion, Perspective

2012-01-10T17:13:00.001+13:00

"If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking."

George Patton

The Story; The End

2012-01-07T00:15:00.000+13:00

The day drug on.
Energy levels were low.
The rain continued to pour.

Books waited on the shelves.
Impetus was gone.
They'd still be there tomorrow.

Yet once inside the story,
a good and gripping story,
nothing could distract attention.

But then, the story would end.
Disappointing really.
Not the plot, but that it should end.
That writer and reader and characters must now part.

Therein may be the seed of hesitation;
reluctance to begin what must end,
Fickle relationships limited to page numbers.

Give me something to read

2012-01-06T00:22:00.002+13:00

Lists abound at the end of the year . . . best films, books, games, apps . . . .

One interesting list I stumbled upon in my rambles around the WWW is at Give Me Something to Read and is a list of interesting articles chosen as this year's highlights.

Give Me Something To Read describes itself as "A hand-picked selection of the finest articles and essays saved with Instapaper." Instapaper is a useful way to save bits that you see online, but on't have time to read right then. You add it to your list of Read Laters and then it is accessible on your iPad, laptop, smart phone or in any internet cafe around the world. Instapaper is free ad handy. I recommend it.

So whether you bookmark Give Me Something to Read, register for Instapaper or just find an interesting article from the list, I hope this blog post has added value for you today.

Sometimes Conversations@Intersections is about me and my wanderings, and sometimes it is helpful things I've discovered that I want to share with you. I'm not sure why you stopped in here, os why you return, but I'm glad to have intersected with you and hope it was of some value to you.

It's an odd thing, this internet. Conversations take place over keyboards rather than around tables. Maybe we should have Meet-ups as Tweeters do.

Chocolate: Darker the better

2012-01-05T00:09:00.001+13:00

Did you get any chocolate for Christmas?

For those of you in the cooler seasons right now, do you reach for hot chocolate to warm your insides?

The chocolate itself is not bad for us, in fact, it has some good benefits. But what is mixed in with the chocolate might be additives that add more than you want!

Check out what Jennifer Bowden has to say in The NZ Listener's Nutrition column.

Download Jennifer's free Food Diary from Thinking Nutrition.

Unknowns

2012-01-04T00:30:00.000+13:00

Locals lean, smoking, waiting for their bus

to suburbs and streets unknown to me.

She passes with hollow eyes,

not really seeing the familiar footpath unfolding before her.

Just arrived, with a foreign perspective,

I see their city differently from them, with an unknowing.

Networks and collaboration in Blogging

2012-01-02T00:06:00.005+13:00

How do you find content to read on the internet? It's not hard to find content, but to find the stuff that's most interesting to you?

Do you check the blog rolls of bloggers you read? Many blogs do have recommended blogs listed in the sidebar or links.

Have you heard of collaborative blogging where more than one person provides the content? It might give you more value with less web searching, bringing all the articles together in one place.

Some bloggers use a blog hop, they network their blogs together with others for maximum exposure, a circle of similar yet different commentators on life & it's components.

Check out one such hop on my friend Shanda's blog. Shanda has lived in at least 7 countries and traveled in many more. She has a soft heart and a good mind and a fun family.

Cheryl is another blogging friend to be found at In the Life of a Busy Woman. Cheryl writes of home and heart, from a Christian perspective, as a working wife & mom with teenagers and a university student. Her blog roll includes thinkers and book blogs and an interesting assortment.

Angela Richards writes of Living Overseas and Loving it, the perspective of a foreigner married to a foreigner and raising kids with the best of both worlds. I knew Angela before she was a foreigner, but then have visited in her home in various cities.

Diary of A Goldfish promotes Blogging Against Disablism Day in early May each year by encouraging people to blog about disability and then to link all those blogs via her site. Who do you know who might like to join in that conversation this year?

The Cosy Bookshop is a work in progress with authorship shared between 5 busy women who have an idea. This blog is like an incubator, sometimes neglected as life-here-and-now demands more attention. The main thing about this blog is that the blog is not the main thing; The Cosy Bookshop is. Well, it will be when two of the five of us have done their small business course and can eliminate many mistakes before we make them.

There are webrings too, where people share a blog, link in and out of it. Usually there is a commonality that makes sense and attracts both readers of writers of similar ilk. My friend Jemma is part of one at RevGalBlogPals ~a circle of friends since 2005~. That circle is primarily women in Christian ministry from around the world.

All kinds of groups, clubs and organisations are using blogs as a communal web presence, a repository of info, opinion and advice.

Where do you find good content? Twitter, StumbleUpon, Flipboard . . .?

Are you part of a webring, blog hop or co-author a blog?

Tips for collaborative blogging from ProBlogger and from BrainZooming
One thing to watch out for is splogging where comments on blogs are SPAM used to advertise something unrelated to the blogger.

Blogging is a funny thing. It doesn't shout for attention, but is satisfying somehow, at least to this blog writer.

Dissatisfied

2012-01-01T00:28:00.000+13:00

She approaches confidently,

asking how my dinner is,

with no idea I sent my meal back last Sunday, dissatisfied.

She approaches timidly,

wondering how my dinner is,

and passes by with no idea what she’ll eat tonight, dissatisfied.

Slow food, near it’s source

2011-12-31T00:25:00.000+13:00

Though we arrived late to the Farmer’s Market, after the cold had chased the buskers away,

we hunted and gathered, and interacted with the producers themselves. Buying food nearer

to it’s source is satisfying, and knowing the financial gain was going only into the pockets

of those who did the work, more so.

The Lebanese woman’s recipe of spinach stuffed bread with a tang of lemon went nicely

with ‘young’ Colin’s cheese and the venison salami I’m to “hang unwrapped by it’s string.”

Add all of these to the tomato, lentil & pumpkin soup made by my friend, and we feasted.

Food is best shared, most satisfying when hungry and long remembered when the procurement takes time.

Knitting Therapy

2011-12-30T00:07:00.000+13:00

I've seen babies rub the satin edge of their blanket and men stroke their dog's fur.

What do you do that might compare? Read on . . .

Knitting is becoming the in thing in younger generations, not just the domain of nana's anymore.

Several of my friends knit or crochet. My grandmother taught me to crochet when I was a girl, but I've done nothing of that sort for many years, and don't now.

I garden, make photographs, read, try to paint sometimes . . . .

In a television show called NCIS, you might see Gibbs working on a boat he is building in his basement. A few visitors have commented on the potential difficulty of getting the boat out. Gibbs just looks at them like they're dumb; they just don't get it.

It's about the making of the thing.

Knitting can be like that too, from yarn to thing with a couple of sticks. Click on the cartoon to the left and you'll be taken to the rest of the story; how knitting can be therapeutic, how the process and the rhythm connects with the knitter on an emotional level.

What do you do that might compare?

"Make it your goal to live a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands,

just as we instructed you before." 1 Thessalonians 4:11

“Crisps, lollies or biscuits?”

2011-12-29T00:31:00.000+13:00

“Crisps, lollies or biscuits?” she said as she paid attention to passengers in each row.

It was only after I heard it for the seventh or eighth time that I realized how foreign

those words would be to someone unfamiliar with the Queen’s English, or any of it’s

colonial derivatives.

NZ673, Auckland to Dunedin, 2 Nov 2011

Grief: The Aggrieved & Their friends

2011-12-28T00:30:00.001+13:00

People act oddly when others are grieving. Some personality types want to fix things, remove the offense so their friend will cheer up. Others avoid the aggrieved, possibly feeling ineffectual and frustrated. Some cannot empathise at all and others say really stupid things.

I like what Stephen Marsh has written about Job's friends.

Doesn't everyone know that when you have grief or sorrow, what your life really needs is someone to shout at you?

Of course what they are really doing is trying to make sense of Job's problems. They want:

The universe to make sense.
The universe to make sense in a way that assures them that they are innoculated or protected against bad things happening to them.
Job to get over it so he is not a cloud in their lives.
To "help" without actually having to do anything.

Helping a friend in grief is not easy.
Trying to make sense of and understand is challenging for them, let alone for those who are step or two removed. Sometimes it is good to ask your friend how you can help. They may not know, but at least voicing your desire and accompanying ignorance will allow for better communication and lowered expectations.

Oh, and there's no quick fix for grief.
It's different for everyone, it cycles around over time. Two to three years down the road, a parent who has lost a child may still regularly feel the loss acutely. While life must go on, especially if there are other children, it'll never be the same. Never.