First, I’m in favour of marriage equality. I am strongly of the view that same-sex and different-sex relationships ought to be treated exactly the same under the law. It is a next stage to de-pathologising homosexuality in our society and removing legal discrimination against GLBT citizens. We are tantalisingly close to that reality in Australia, so close in fact it seems silly not to close this gap.

Second, I’m against legal marriage in general for several reasons. One is that marriage is an ancient, cultural and religious practice with various political and moral connotations some of which are quite lovely and some of which are simply awful. Most people who get married think they can pick and choose between those connotations, but their ability to really do that is circumscribed by the cultural embeddedness of the institution.

Another is that I think it’s reasonable to claim, reading the Constitution, that the founders of Australia intended it to be a secular society (which I understand to mean government and the state independent of religion, rather than the abolition of all religion). Regardless of their intent, I think religion and politics rise to their greatest social benefit when they occupy separate and distinct social realms. Marriage law is one of the few places under Australian law which muddles the two, which is why religious groups appear to have so much say in what is a legal and civil rights issue.

To illustrate that tension, consider that the Marriage Act defines what a marriage celebrant is. There are two kinds, civil and religious. Religious marriage celebrants are authorised by the religious denomination. The list of recognised denominations (PDF) is defined by a vice-regal proclamation. The Australian constitution prohibits the government from establishing a state religion and, as far as I know this is the only place under Australian law which comes close.

Marriage in a legal sense is a very special kind of corporate entity it’s a certain kind of legal partnership. The cultural/religious rite (let’s call it “matrimony” is the sanctification of a human relationship by cultural and spiritual practices. Sometimes obscured by the legal and cultural veils is the actual human relationship between two human beings in love. Legal marriage doesn’t make that relationship, in fact sometimes it makes it a great deal harder than it needs to be.

What makes this all a bit odd is this concept we have called “de facto relationships“, which are almost identical to marriage except that the legal entity is formed by co-habiting for a couple of years, rather than by paying some money to a civil celebrant or convincing a priest you love each other. Ironically, at the federal level at least, same-sex de factos enjoy exactly the same rights and responsibilities as different-sex de factos. Which form of legal partnership more accurately follows the reality of a relationship, the one where you can get married at the registry office on a drunken whim or the one where you have to keep a household together for two years?

My third commitment, as a priest, is to an understanding that it’s valid to anoint the spiritual character that the bond of love between two people displays. The sacred encounter between two people which opens into love and devotion is one of the most effective modes human transformation ever devised. Matrimony is a blessing and acknowledgement of this encounter with the Divine in the face of the Other.

So, I’ve come to a position which allows me to maintain each of these commitments about which I’m passionate. It’s actually quite simple:

Repeal the Marriage Act.

Remove all references to marriage from all three layers of government, retain civil partnerships formed solely through the current de facto arrangements. If there situations like immigration which require a relationship to be registered before two years have elapsed then allow a couple to register themselves as “intended partners”, a fact which could grant them a temporary visa, which becomes permanent when they become actual de factos.

Make matrimony a cultural custom which religious and cultural organisations can define however they wish, with no legal force. Some couples may decide to undertake matrimony before they become de facto partners, some after – it’s up to them. Churches like mine and the Unitarians and the Buddhists will continue to marry gay and lesbian couples and the Sydney Anglicans and the Roman Catholics can continue to refuse and… well… who cares, really?

I’m far from the first person to suggest this, but I thought I’d add my voice to a growing chorus. I argue that this proposal “retains the sanctity of marriage” more effectively than religious groups trying to maintain control over an aspect of federal law, which pollutes both religion and politics in a manner which I find increasingly abhorrent. I’m not pretending there aren’t some wrinkles to iron out, but I think this is the right way to start.

It’s not too late to make this a reality. It actually serves the demands of all parties better than most of the current suggestions. It’s simple. It’s bold. Let’s do it.

Repeal the Marriage Act.

I’ll make the t-shirts if you’ll wear ‘em.

UPDATE: Just wanted to add a shout-out to Julian and Tailsteak who got here way before me. If you know other people making the same argument, please link ‘em up in the comments.

The Royal Family gather in the Temple to make the traditional blood sacrifices to the Archons #royalwedding

Queen reportedly impressed that Kate only issued muffled shrieks as the Royal cranial symbiote was implanted#royalwedding

Some controversy over which former Prime Minister will be fed to Rex Mundi as it manifests in Westminster Abbey#royalwedding

Spectators urged to watch for nanoswarm outbreaks and wandering shoggoths while in Mall area. #royalwedding

The Archbishop of Canterbury makes his formal entry to the Abbey bearing the Hand of Glory #royalwedding

Spectators unsurprised at the complete invisibility of the Queen’s Ninjas who are reportedly dotted all over Mall and Abbey#royalwedding

RT @LondonPolice Please take care and avoid spatial rifts as ArchCant performs opening invocations #royalwedding

SBSNews: People stared into a nightmare and lived to tell the tale #royalwedding (OK, Anton was talking about the tornadoes in the USA, but he did say it.)

Crowds cheer as the grenadiers begin to bait the great spirithooks with the corpses of the homeless #royalwedding

I hoped there might be less horror and darkness at this #royalwedding given Will’s rep #nosuchluck #alwaysawindsor

On a lighter note: as Princess Anne’s personal cyborg regiment assemble into a giant centaur the mob cheers#royalwedding #breadandcircuses

Warning: all spectators in Union Jack bowler hats are shoggoths in rubber human suits. Avoid!!! Please RT!#royalwedding

Clarence House insists the Duke of Cambridge is wearing his actual body not an android duplicate #royalwedding

Dogs reportedly howling as far away as Cambridge as the Royal Anathematicians begin to rend time #royalwedding

A gallery of accidental reveals of the Duke of Edinburgh’s dorsal tentacles over the years http://bit.ly/tdf5rQ #royalwedding#hilarious (in case anyone’s confused, that’s a fake URL. Philip has successfully concealed his dorsal tentacles all these years. Or at least, if anyone got a photo, they haven’t been permitted to live)

Very disappointed to see JG consent to that blue fungal cerebral parasite. Humiliating to see our PM enslaved as a drone #royalwedding (Did you see that thing?)

OMG Royal Vampyres quantum tunneling into my spacetime! Help! #royalwedding

No! Argh! My eyes! My eyes! The pain! Speak well of me… When I’m… Gone…#royalwedding

Then my mate Ian and I ended up in an odd conversation via SMS that somehow wound up producing these:

(which I’ll own is a slight misquote. But don’t you think Harry looks like he’s plotting something devilish?)

At least one friend has condemned me to pun hell as a result. I’m personally quite proud of making a very sweet, romantic shot look sinister. Or Thelemic. Or something.

Oh well, you know what I say about mainstream epimedia – if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

(If I ever teach philosophy, in their final assignment students will have to prove their grasp of their chosen philosopher by rewriting the lyrics of a popular song to reflect his or her key ideas. Marks will be given for concise expression, accurate exposition and maintaining the backbeat.)

I asked my social media friends (on Twitter and Facebook) for recommendations on where to start with the thought of Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995) – a name I first started encountering in the early 90s. The edgy kids were all talking about Deleuze and Guattari‘s Anti-Oedipus (which I tried and failed to read) at the time. In the intervening years, he’s become more and more influential to contemporary thought and I’ve started to feel that I’m missing out by not at least trying to grok him a little.

So, thanks to @Eventmechanics, Dr Eimer and His Grace Dr Behun, His Grace Bishop Thomas Langley, Dr Ben Kraal, Trish Nowland and Orion Mitchell for their helpful suggestions. Here is a beginner’s introductory  list for CP302 – The Thought of Gilles Deleuze – my imaginary contemporary philosophy course.

To begin with, ABC Radio National’s “The Philosopher’s Zone” recently featured a two-part interview (part 1, part 2) between Alan Saunders and Robert Sinnerbrink from Macquarie Uni, so if you want to know what the fuss is about, that seems a good place to start.

When trying to understand a new philosopher, I almost always start with secondary sources, herewith…

Understanding Deleuze by Claire Colebrook (amzn – there’s a Kindle edition) got a couple of recommendations. Apparently, “Claire Colebrook has produced a truly accessible pathway into the labyrinthine enchantments offered for contemporary thought by Deleuzianism, making concepts clear, showing their political and theoretical complexity, elaborating their social and artistic relevance.” – according to one reviewer. She’s also written “Deleuze: A Guide for the Perplexed” – which is a little shorter.

Manuel DeLanda’s Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy (amzn), provides what sounds like a good approach for people coming from the sciences, rather than the humanities. Here’s some blog traffic: “DeLanda couches Deleuze’s realist ontology in terms understandable not only to philosophers, but also to scientists. No easy task. But thanks to his efforts, I am for the first time convinced that there is some light for a realist ontology in science . It is an area that, ever since Nietzsche said: “There are no facts, only interpretations”, has looked very shaky.”

My tweep @Eventmechanics, suggested Signature of the World by Eric Alliez (pub) and especially the preface by Alberto Toscano as essential reading for Deleuze and Guattari (the other D+G) beginners. He also pointed out this review of the book by John Protevi that expresses some of the difficulties in representing GD’s work.

In terms of Deleuze’s actual works, here are some recommendations:

“Kafka: toward a minor literature“, U of Minnesota Press, 1986 – at least the first section as an intro to earlier work

“What is Philosophy?“, Verso, 1994 – as an intro to later work

“Postscript on the Societies of Control” October, Vol. 59. (Winter, 1992), pp. 3-7.

“Proust and Signs“, Athlone, 2000

Myself, after the ABC interview, I’m going to start on Colebrook and then jump straight into “Postscript on the Societies of Control” and see how I do. I hope this little summary is some use to someone else.

… always remember: you can dance… for inspiration

However one aspect is a little surprising. Many prior “world” or “global” integral initiatives seem to me to use those qualifiers to describe a target market; most seem to have struggled to extend their leadership beyond a narrow corridor between Boulder, CO and San Francisco, CA – sometimes extending as far afield as New York. CWS by contrast has several European teachers involved in the leadership group, which to me is a welcome expansion.

Of course, my attention is always taken by who’s left out – and I’ll own that as an attentional bias – in this case: Africa, The Middle East, Asia and Australasia. In discussion, Marty has patiently explained to me (from his experience handling internationalisation at Microsoft) that the rest of the world doesn’t get left out by overstretched organisations like Integral Institute, Integral Life and CWS out of malice or neglect. It’s a kind of operational ethnocentrism – it’s just too hard to keep reaching out to a world you can’t really properly see, meet or evaluate.

I (probably much less patiently) explained to Marty that I’d be more relaxed about that if I saw more apparent effort to try. We agreed that it seemed worth inquiring into whether CWS was interested in having leaders from Australasia involved and developing a list of potential names from this region to propose for them to connect with. Maybe some of us could help out with making those connections.

I think it seems to both of us that things are more likely to emerge if we start from possibility rather than operating from wounds.

So, I decided to ask my networks. I figured I’d back my integral friends to know who was who. I asked my Facebook friends and I asked Sydney Integral…

Who are the integrally-oriented or integrally-informed spiritual leaders or teachers, either in one of the traditions (eg Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, etc) or outside? Who have you sat with or read about or encountered or heard of in our region who you’d say is an integral spiritual leader? Integral spirituality events in the US always feature a lot of interesting people from the USA and Canada, does that mean there’s no-one in the Antipodes doing this work?

I got a bunch of terrific responses (if you’re my friend Facebook, check out the discussion on my wall) – some of them pointing out specific people, many of them interrogating the implicit leader-follower dynamic of the question and suggesting that spiritual learning may be most effectively found outside the realm of self-identified “teachers”.

Peter Hayward made the interesting comment, “I suspect we have a number of spiritually informed teachers who concentrate on a certain praxis domain that is informed by spirit and a deficit of teachers for whom the praxis domain is spirituality itself”.

We certainly have a few of the former, among the more visible: Peter himself and Joe Voros teaching the Strategic Foresight program at Swinburne, Tim Winton’s sustainability work at the Permaforest Trust in Byron Bay and Will Varey’s development of the learning community around his concept of apithology. Ron Cacciope’s Integral Leadership Institute in Perth has a significant profile in business circles. The emerging Integral Spiritual Network being developed  by Tamara Androsoff, Tom Dünser [EDIT: and Andrew Rockell! Sorry Andrew!] out of Auckland Integral is in an early stage but already seems influential. There’s the freshly minted Keep Evolving group here in Sydney.

There are local community leaders in Auckland (Tamara, Marty, Andrew and Tom), Brisbane (Ralf  Mühlberger and Terry Bishop), Melbourne (Brendan Cartmel), Perth (Will Vary) and Sydney (Trish Nowland who skilfully elicits leadership from a merry band of supporters) - each of whom exemplifies a complex dance of leadership in community.

There are dozens of therapists, coaches and consultants who ground their practice in spirituality and operate out of an integral orientation. Take a look at the regional directory for some specific names.

The other issue that came up a few times is how “leadership” might appear differently in our local culture. Wendelin Küpers contributed his recent Integral Leadership Review paper, “Up-lifting the Integral Down Under” which (amongst other things) reflects on the culture of Australia and New Zealand in particular notions of prominence and leadership. I found it interesting to reflect on the tricky task of integral community leadership in this culture while reading Wendelin’s paper.

So, given all that, based on what people have said to me on Facebook and privately and on a few of my own views, here is a non-authoritative, non-exhaustive list of folks in this region who might be considered integral spiritual leaders. “Leaders” in the sense that they have guided a substantial number of others. “Integral” either in the sense that either they explicitly use an integral model (like Wilber’s AQAL) or that they seem to teach from an integral perspective. I’ve added quotes or some explanation where I can for context. They’re listed in no particular order.

[EDIT: In case it isn't obvious, I haven't spoken to any of these people about any of this. Some of them may be horrified at being included in this list. I apologise in advance if that's the case, I'm happy to remove your name on request]

• John Heron in Auckland – http://www.human-inquiry.com/jhcvpubl.htm“… an evolutionary – committed to the process of co-operative inquiry, in whatever field it is applied, as a basic form of relational and participative spiritual practice.”
• Ajahn Brahm in Perth – http://www.ajahnbrahm.org/Much-loved voice in Theravada Buddhism. Very influential beyond his community, phrasing the dharma in way that is accessible to the lay public.
• Bhante Sujarto in Sydney – http://metta.org.au/individuals/152/bhante-sujatoThai Forest Tradition monk who has taken a lead role in advocating for the revival of women’s ordination in his tradition.
• Subhana Barzaghi in Sydney – http://www.subhana.com.au/about/Zen and Insight Meditation teacher and psychotherapist. A major leader in the Sydney Zen community whose influence weaves through the community of local integral folk.
• Philip Oude-Vrielink in Melbourne– http://www.integralalchemy.com/Business consultant and Big Mind facilitator who constantly offers affordable Big Mind, Big Heart days throughout the region, where possible in collaboration with local integral groups.
• Dr Jean Byrne and Rob Schütze in Sydney Perth– http://www.yogaspace.com.au/Integrally-informed Ashtanga yoga teachers with a range of other expertise and interests.
• “Sailor” Bob Adamson in Melbourne – http://www.sailorbobadamson.com/Widely respected Advaita teacher.

If you disagree with including someone for some reason or there’s someone you think belongs on the list who isn’t there, email me or weigh in on the comments. Thanks to everyone who has contributed so far.

… well maybe one small thing. Pretty much every day, when I go to use the boy’s loo, I find an empty toilet paper roll – someone has used the last of the paper and failed to replace the roll. I would have thought maybe they couldn’t find them (in the only cupboard in the room near the door), but then a few times I’ve seen a fresh roll balanced on the empty roll… At least once a day and sometimes twice a day.

Now, there are a few instructional signs around the place suggesting in fairly stern terms that residents do the washing up and mop the bathroom floor if they have a shower, so I considered making another sign… but… I’ve had some good results in the past by approaching issues like this assuming a skill gap rather malice and using humour rather than gravitas.

Enter “Bog Roll School”, an instructional comic on how to change the toilet paper. I put a copy up above the toilet roll holder a couple of days ago and so far… no empty toilet rolls. Let’s see how we go over the longer term.

Please enjoy. The original is in ComicLife, so if you could find a use for it around your office or home, drop me a note

The final thing that I’d say … and you’ll all go and look at my maiden speech after this because, and I hadn’t looked at it for quite some time, it’s not really worth reading. But I’ll go to part of it that I think was because I think it’s very pertinent to today’s decision. Obviously many people would have thought the electorate of New England, given its history, the member would possibly vote for the coalition. When I first came into this place and when I was in the State parliament, one of the fascinating parts about the political process was how country people never took advantage of their vote. Their vote was always sidelined and in a sense the National Party, until recently the Country Liberal party was seen as the representative of country people. What has happened through the amalgamation, or the coalition of the Nationals and the Liberal Party, is that the country vote and the same applies to country Labor and the Labor Party, the country vote has been subsumed into the two major parties which are dominated by the city based majority. And the elections have been fought in the Western suburbs of our major cities, so that country issues haven’t really come to the foore in relation to the policy debate because they’ve been assumed by one side and taken for granted by the other. And the fact that there are country independents in this building indicates that country people have had enough of that … particularly over the last 15 years, where the two major parties are actually virtually the same in terms of policy, a few minor changes on the side and we saw that at the election where Tony Abbott went to the polls with the union movement’s industrial relations legislation. And Julia Gillard went to the polls with the Liberal Party’s boat people policy. So we’ve seen this merging of philosophies in a sense, and in that there is an enormous opportunity for country people through their representatives to deal with either side of the parliament and actually take political advantage of that moment. And that’s exactly what we’re doing here, exactly what we’re doing here, is actually taking advantage of that moment and sending a signal to country people that if you wanted to be taken for granted in the future, go back to the old ways because that’s exactly what will happen to you. The admission by both parties through their various documents … the admission is that they have neglected country Australians and they are attempting through this process because of the way the numbers have been crunched to try and rectify that particular situation. So I make this plea to country people, some of whom who don’t agree with the Labor Party, this isn’t about philosophy. Philosophy, in terms of both these parties, died about a decade ago or probably longer. This is about using the political system to advantage the people we represent and those people in regional Australia. I do conclude, my vote will be going to the Gillard government. I won’t support trivial no-confidence motions, I will support supply and I will reserve the right to represent my constituency on any vote in parliament, I also reserve the right to move a no-confidence motion in the government as I see fit. Thank you.

A more cautious approach to globalisation, commitment to addressing climate change, addressing indigenous (especially rural and remote indigenous) disadvantage, repairing the river systems, environmental decay etc. In short, giving some kind of a toss about the issues that vex people living more than 60 minutes outside the CBD of a capital city.

You look at the list of demands that former National Party independent Bob Katter’s making of the Labor Party and you see why he’s an independent. But how many of those items would look out of place for a Greens candidate?

I’m on the record as saying that one day soon the Nationals will realise that they’ve got more in common with the Greens than with the Liberals and they’ll start asking themselves who they really ought to be in coalition with. After all the colours of the logo match much better.

Two years ago, this sounded like one of my crazy rants that I do when I’ve had too much coffee just to get people annoyed, but how crazy does it sound this week?

• in a check-up with Gerard, my nutritionist, two months ago my bodyfat had crept back up to nearly 19%
• I’ve been travelling a bit in the last few weeks, including a trip to the USA, but I worked on my diet and went back to eating Ful for breakfast instead of porridge, tried to keep starches out of most meals, upped my vegetable intake
• I haven’t been exercising much over that time
• I had a check-up last week and my bodyfat was a bit over 18%
• Gerard let me know he’s leaving the practice to become a schoolteacher – apparently that’s fun!
• this morning I got my own Tanita bodyfat scale so I can monitor my bodyfat daily or weekly if I want to
• Niche and I are kicking up our workout consistency this week and I’m planning to fit in more high intensity cardio.

So, on balance, things are good

I’ve called it That Our Hearts May Burn With Fire.

I’d be honoured if you’d join me. This blog here will continue for software, integral theory, organisational rants and miscellaneous stuff.

Fortunately, the group was very welcoming and gentle with me. Several people who felt their needs weren’t being met very kindly asserted their needs without being critical, and I was able to adjust my course a little. I had an absolutely lovely time and some delightful conversation before, during and after.

Some folks made a recording of the talk, which I gather will appear on the web in due course, so I’ll update this entry with a link to that. In the meantime, I’m posting my Prezi, a gallery of the images I used and a brief bibliography for anyone who’d like to read further.

Images from "Religion Without Belief"

Bibliography

Wilber, K. “Integral Spirituality”, Integral Books, Boston, MA, 2006 – A lot of the ideas in the talk come from this book. If the idea of post-metaphysical spirituality appeals to you. Go look here.

Macarius the Egyptian, Spiritual Homilies – the vision of Ezekiel I read out came from the opening of this. Macarius goes on to discuss the symbolism of the vision.

Wallace, B. A. “The Attention Revolution”, Wisdom Publications, 2006 – Wallace is the neuro-scientist and Buddhist I mentioned briefly who is studying the effects of Buddhist meditation. Here is his web page, the page for his research institute and a description of the research project. He comes to Sydney once or twice a year to offer retreats.

Fowler, W. J. “Stages of faith: the psychology of human development and the quest for meaning”, Harper, 1995 – I mentioned Fowler’s developmental model of spirituality in passing. This is the book where he lays out his research. There are summaries on Wikipedia and here.

Bourgeault, C. “Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening”, Cowley, 2004 – The style of meditation in the Christian tradition that I’m most fond of is called Centering Prayer. This book is an excellent introduction to it.

Finally, I promised a few people a reference to my own church and what we’re up to. The main church website for the Apostolic Johannite Church is here, our local parish in Sydney is here and you can sign up to the regular newsletter via the form on the front page. I’m running a Centering Prayer workshop later this month, so if you’re interested in exploring the Christian tradition in terms of what you can do, rather than what you need to believe, come along!

Practice.

The news programs tell us of the scale of the earthquake in Haiti. They talk about how much suffering there is. One important part of that is how rickety civil society in Haiti was prior to the disaster. Haiti was the target of a lot of international relief in any case so they’re in an awful situation to cope with what’s just happened.

The results of a desperately exploitative colonial past, economic boycotts and successive dictatorships have left the island barely able to sustain itself in the best of times. And now this. So there’s a desperate, practical, humanitarian need for immediate, large-scale help.

The spiritual context for taking action is, to me, founded in the understanding that we are one human people, not separate. My devotion must be to my neighbour, as dear to me as my own soul. This isn’t a logical argument about why you should act, it is simply the spiritual fact of the matter – one we work hard to remain blind to because it is so terribly inconvenient, unwelcome and expensive.

I believe that choosing to act on behalf of another, especially another I do not know and will never meet, is a way of asserting to myself, to my logical mind, this eternal truth of non-separateness. A decision to give in a situation like this, or even to give to someone on the street who asks, made consciously, resonates through my being beyond my rational capacities and tells all of Me the truth. I am not helping “them” I am helping “us“.

So, with that as context, please consider doing something to help those who are already on the ground in Haiti. If you already support a charity which has a Haiti appeal, consider giving a little more. If you don’t here’s some suggestions.

• Save The Children
• UNICEF
• Australian Red Cross
• AVAAZ – Haiti Appeal

But don’t just send money, pray too. Pray for those of us in Haiti. Pray for those of us who have lost our parents. Pray for us who have lost our children, our sisters and brothers, husbands and wives. Pray for us in our need. Pray for our comfort and care and health and courage and will.

May the Unknown Father rain down loving-kindness and strength upon the people of Haiti and may the souls of all the faithful departed forever rest in peace.

Dad, me and Mum around 1968 or 1969

Ten years ago today, John Arthur Mansfield, my Dad, died.

He was at home. Jenny, Tess and I had seen him that day and Mum was with him at the moment he breathed out for the last time.

Here’s something I wrote about him and me. Here’s the eulogy I said at his funeral.

He loved Stravinsky and Jazz music, Peter Sellers and Stan Freberg. He used to shout at the television when the football was on.

I still miss his bald head and his kind hands. I miss his constant support. I miss his sense of humour. I miss both his courage and his weakness.

We miss you, Dad.

Rest eternal grant to him, O Lord, and may light perpetual shine upon him.

That's the way we like it.

I have nothing against Adobe’s Flash as a technology. We wouldn’t have YouTube without it and look how much good that’s done for civilization!

The thing is, I’m in a slightly annoying computing situation – entirely of my own making, I stress. I work on a MacBook Air that I insisted my job buy for me (Noo, I don’t want a MacBook Pro! It’s far too heavy!).

Indeed the Air is light and thin and gives me a lot of gadget kudos at airport security. It also has a common, completely disastrous bug. When the machine gets hot, as the processor temperature passes some critical threshold and for reasons I don’t understand, the kernel task goes nutso and starts eating the twin CPUs, using 150% all on its own (more typically it sits at around 1.5%) and all work grinds to a halt.

Not every Air does this, only the lucky ones. In hot weather, mine does it several times a day and all I can really do it put it to sleep and go catch up on reading while it cools down.

I tried using a very geeky application called CoolBook which helps you undervolt the CPU to manage the CPU temperature, but I’ll confess I don’t understand what I’m doing well enough to make that work.

Then I read a tip about installing a Safari plugin called ClickToFlash (there are similar programs for Firefox) which doesn’t load Flash programs embedded in web pages until you click on them. In the meantime they get replaced with a handsome gray rectangle. I was pretty skeptical this would make any difference to my CPU problems.

But three days later, and my processor load is so low the load graph on Activity Monitor barely shows a blip (see illustration above). Turns out most web pages have some Flash on them, often just to make small animated ads, but I guess a lot of it is fairly inefficient code and eats up a lot of processor. Many pages are littered with Flash ads, all running at the same time.

So, my advice? Seriously, get a Flash blocker for your browser. Also I guess I should recommend that you seriously consider if you really need a MacBook Air.

The visible progress has all been good. Gerard (my naturopath-nutritionist) has been watching my bodyfat measure on his scale drop from my original 22% three months ago down to 15% and my waistline shows the difference, so he and Nick (my psychotherapist-GP) agreed that it was time to get a second round of tests.

Last week, Nick and I sat down to review the results. The liver numbers on the blood report were all in the middle of the normal range, way down from their elevated levels that sparked this whole project off. The golden moment, though, was the ultrasound report. Nick had request that the sonographer compare this exam with the film from the previous exam. Here’s the conclusion:

The findings previously of fatty infiltration of the liver have resolved.

So, in a very technical sense, I’m well.

Gerard and I spoke last week about adapting my diet out of “crisis mode”. We all understand that if I go back to the way I was living for the last few years I will wind up in the same spot or worse in a few years, so we talked about how to keep the current plan sustainable: another serve of wholegrains a day, lots of variety , sticking with regular exercise and finding fun ways to get it. The usual.

I think one of the many things I’ve got out of this is that to frame my former way of eating and exercising (or not) as “abuse”, now that I’ve adopted a new set of behaviours I’ve got all the indicators to show that I’m “normal”, but my aim is to weave them into a sustainable lifestyle that is recognisably “healthy”.

Wish me luck!

Opening

Stand or kneel. Say the Name slowly.

In the name of the +Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

With devotion.

Open my lips O Lord : and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.

O God make speed to save me : O Lord make haste to help me.

Psalmody

Chant the psalm for this office. If you don’t use a psalter, just start at Psalm 1 and read the next one at each subsequent prayertime. Just chant in a monotone, if you are worried about your singing, but chant.

Do your best to keep your mind harnessed to the words of the chant, returning your attention to the chant when it drifts.

Once you’ve chanted the psalm, you may move into Lectio Divina based on the text or simply move on to the reading.

Reading

Using either the lectionary reading for the day or a reading you choose – perhaps by simply working your way through a Gospel or other book of your choice – read the text aloud.

Optionally, move through the phases of Lectio Divina – lectio, ruminatio, oratio and contemplatio.

Contemplation

The preceding phases help to quiet the mind and settle the subtle body, which makes this an ideal moment for:

• Shamatha meditation
• Hesychastic prayer
• Centering prayer

Prayer

From your heart, pray as you will. You may choose to:

• intercede for those in need of prayer;
• offer gratitude for blessings you have experienced;
• offer praise to the Divine for the ongoing sacrament of life
• reflect on the ways you have not lived up to your aspirations and pray for release from the debts you’ve incurred.

If there are several prayer times in the day – consider focusing on a particular kind of prayer every day at that time.

Closing

Slowly, treasuring the meaning of each phrase, with devotion.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy Name
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven
Give us this day our daily bread
Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory Forever, Amen.

Lord, bless me and bring me to wholeness, compassion and understanding. Amen

Leaving aside whether it’s useful or sensible to give up coffee, I thought it might be interesting to post some thoughts about how to give up. Perhaps these thoughts might apply to other kinds of habit-forming substances. Your mileage may vary.

I’ve given up coffee several times, for several reasons. I’m not suggesting you do and if you do, I’m not suggesting you do it forever. You may have some short term reason for doing so, or you might want to do it for the long-term. My suggestions about getting off, because I’ve gone on and off, I don’t have much to offer about long-term strategies other than – if you end up with a habit again, just do all this again.

The main thing I want to point out is that most coffee habits actually have three distinct aspects woven together: addiction, psychological habit and social habit.

Addiction is a physical dependency. Your brain builds a dependency on having caffeine fed to it regularly, when you stop it goes into caffeine withdrawal causing headaches (and possibly other side-effects). I once went from about 7-8 espressos a day to none overnight – I’ve described the effect as “wearing the iron crown” for three days. Imagine a big crown cast from pig iron with spikes that dig into your head. As I recall it was also three days in which everyone hated me and I hated everyone: I really don’t recommend it.

Because addiction is a physical dependency based on chemical needs, I’d recommend treating it chemically – just make sure that you wean yourself off caffeine over a few days. You can do this by cutting down cups, slowly substituting decaf for caffeinated coffee or using caffeine pills (much like you’d use nicotine gum or lozenges when quitting smoking).

But, you’re also likely to have a psychological habit of drinking coffee – maybe you associate coffee as a reward drink, a drink marking a mid-point in the afternoon, a drink you have when you wake up. You have an individual pattern of associations between various times and actions and drinking coffee.

An approach to giving up that deals purely with the chemical addiction, but not with the habitual behaviour patterns is less likely to work. I’d recommend finding substitute behaviours – maybe other drinks to fill the gap: tea, decaf, herbal drinks – or in the case of rewards things like dark chocolate. However in the world of rewards you tend to drift to booze, candy and cigarettes and really, coffee’s the lesser of many evils, but if you can find a healthy substitute reward that works for you, go for it.

The final aspect is the social habit. You probably “go for coffee” with friends. I have always had a cup of coffee with my beloved as a way to start the day, coffee often comes after a shared meal and so on. In many cases, we hang out with other coffee drinkers whose social persona includes “coffee drinker” as a self-identifier, as does one’s own. This aspect is not about your personal habit, or your chemical dependency, it’s about social pressure.

Depending on how big a part coffee drinking plays in the group’s culture, this part can be easy or very, very hard. If it’s just a basic social habit to have a cup of coffee with friends, it’s fairly easy to substitute green tea or a herbal tea for your usual cup of coffee without much problem.

But if you hang out with people whose usual drink is a single shot of espresso, who know what a ristretto is and who laugh out loud when a friend orders a “decaf skim latte”, you may have some issues.

You’ve really got three options in my view:

1. show up a little late and order a decaf so that no-one can hear
2. order whatever you want and soldier through the derision
3. find new friends and stop hanging out with the coffee pushers

My approach this time through has been aimed at minimising pain and taking it easy.

• I bought a really nice-tasting, organic, Fair Trade decaf coffee for our espresso machine
• I started substituting decaf espressos in place of my usual, without changing frequency
• after a couple of days, I tried only drinking decaf until I started to feel a headache or some withdrawal symptoms and then add a “medicinal dose” of caffeinated espresso
• over a week or so, those incidents naturally started to space out
• I started to substitute green tea and herbals in place of some of the decafs

… and that’s pretty much it. Now once or twice a week I have a cup of caffeinated coffee if I feel like it, and I rarely do. I start the day with a decaf with Anthony because we like to make coffee for each other. If my friends raise their eyebrows when I order decaf (and they mostly don’t) I laugh.

That’s my thoughts. Your mileage may, of course, vary. I hope some of that’s been of some value.

The fatty liver issue has meant that I need to restrict my intake of caffeinated coffee (green tea is OK). So, while I have still “just had coffee”, it’s now the decaf stuff. Nice, fair-trade, organic decaf, but decaf nevertheless.

In any case, the bodyfat percentage is down. In a couple of months, we’ll test my blood again and see if my liver’s recovering.

In May this year I turned 42. I figured a prudent step might be to go see a physician and get a medical check-up just to see if anything was amiss. I’ve spent so much time in the last ten years trying to cajole my late mother into seeing a doctor, it seemed a bit hypocritical not to.

I found the kind of General Practitioner I’ve always fantasised about: Dr Nick Bassal. Nick started the Wholistic Medical Centre a couple of decades ago to provide integrated health management. There’s four medical doctors and a whole crew of naturopaths, osteos, nutritionists, masseurs, acupuncturists and so on. I like using alternative therapies, but I’ve always wanted a GP who could refer me to what was the right one to use. Now I’ve got one.

The check-up involved mostly blood tests, which showed skewed liver numbers. We followed up with an ultrasound which showed I have a “fatty liver“: my spreading girth (or “central adiposity” as the medicos like to euphemistically phrase it) is accompanied by visceral fat around my organs and fatty pockets inside my liver. Early signs of Metabolic Syndrome, says Dr Nick. The liver condition will get worse if I don’t change my lifestyle – pockets of fat in my liver gradually squeeze healthy liver cells rendering my liver less functional. Diabetes, cardio-vascular disease, cancer.

Well. That’s why you get a check-up I guess.

So, off to see Gerard the naturopathically-qualified nutritionist to talk about my diet. I saunter in holding a food log from the previous month anticipating a relaxed chat about ways I could improve my diet. Gerard has other ideas.

He hands me a booklet called “Whole Life Vitality” which firmly lays down the law on (previously loved) foods which are forbidden and (previously ignored) foods which are now mandatory. And 60 mins of exercise per day. Every day.

No potatoes of any kind. No white rice. No sweets or chocolate. I count my blessings that he crosses out the “no coffee” part, but seriously, is life worth living without potatoes?

I take a deep breath. It’s not that bad. I’ve done crazier diets and this one’s for serious (as my beloved sister likes to say). I need to work out how to keep this up basically forever or at least until my live gets less fatty.

This is my fourth day. It takes a lot more forethought and planning about my diet than I’m used to. My usual approach is to just do what ever I’m doing until roused by hunger pangs, survey the immediate environment and scavenge food. This approach will no longer work.

I’m kind of in shock about it all. It all seems a bit big. I’ll try to check back in when I’m the swing of things, if that ever happens.

Wish me luck!

Edit: all posts about my fatty liver lifestyle are here: Fatty liver