The Dream Awaits...

A Storm front is due to hit Sydney on Sunday evening - damage expected...

A Story of Success!

This white man sits and dreams, wondering if it is cosmologically possible for the stars to set in such a perfect alignment that would see his sporting utopia realised in 2008! The Hawks are the AFL champions and this weekend the mighty Melbourne Storm play off for back-to-back NRL titles. The Hawthorn Football Club achieved what many considered a far-fetched pipe-dream by beating the seemingly indominable Geelong Cats last Saturday in the 2008 AFL Grand Final. It was a victory full of grit, determination and hunger for the main prize. A win against the odds and a fitting reward for one of Glenferries favourite sons, Shane Crawford.

Crawford debuted for the Hawks in 1992, the year following their premiership success in 1991. At the time he must have thought he was going to board a gravy-train of success, playing in a champion team with more premiership glory an apparent fait accomplie. Little did Shane Crawford know that his debut would coincide with a 17 year drought of success that must have made him wonder if he would ever realise the ultimate dream of a Hawthorn premiership. But he endured and for this white man he was the real story of the Hawks victory this past Saturday. Why? Because it reminds us all that sometimes the spoils we expect to receive in life don't immediately get handed to us on a silver platter. But if we remain patient, endure and stay committed to a dream then eventually we will receive our due reward. I think that's exactly the essence of what Apostle Paul had in mind when he exhorted us all to keep running the race so as to win and receive the prize that awaits us.

Well done Hawthorn! Well done Shane Crawford! And yes Crawf, this white man unashamedly cried with you last Saturday because you are a champion and you deserve your success!

And now a Storm is brewing...

Verse For The Day

We're A Happy Team At Hawthorn...

How sweet it is!

The Obesity Pandemic!

After a two year loan to the United States, Michelangelo's David is being returned to Italy ....

His Proud Sponsors were:

A Soul-Provoking Graphic...

"He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed." Isaiah 53:5

Such a Scandalous Truth!

This white man has been bemused at the recent ecumenical hysteria surrounding Dr Francis Macnab's recent proclamations about what the church must become and embrace to truly be a relevant church of the 21st century. Macnab, the presiding cleric of the Collins St Uniting Church in the heart of Melbourne believes, as many liberal theologians do, that the Protestant church needs some serious theological and practical revisioning. Rather than rehash all the details feel free to peruse this recent article from the Melbourne Age: http://www.theage.com.au/national/new-faith-throws-out-the-ten-commandments-20080915-4h3d.html?page=-1

On a personal note, whilst driving yesterday on the freeway I saw the billboard causing so much consternation; "THE TEN Commandments, one of the most negative documents ever written." I must admit that at first glance the bold pronouncement did cause me to do a quick mental and spiritual double-take. Then this white man realised that, in his humble opinion, the statement within itself is completely true. The Law was negative and was designed to be negative so as to bring humanity to the end of themselves by realising that there was no possible way they could ever adhere to the full measure of the Law and thus achieve right standing with God through their own human effort. So for what it is worth I agree with Dr Macnab in his one-line judgment upon the Law of Moses. And therefore, all of us should thank God for His grace and the freedom of living under the NEW covenant!

"By calling this covenant "new," He has made the first one (law) obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear." Hebrews 8:13

You Can't Please Everyone!

A church had to hire a new pastor. Over the protests of one vocal male member a woman was hired as the new senior pastor. After the new pastor had been there a few weeks, a member of the congregation offered to take the new pastor fishing. The vocal objector reluctantly agreed to allow them to use his boat and to go along. The trio got into the boat and motored out on the lake. When they got ready to fish, they realized that all their tackle had been left on the dock. One of the men commented that they would just have to go back and get it. The new pastor said that wouldn't be necessary, and she got out of the boat and started walking across the water toward the dock. The old grouch said, "See I told you we never should have brought her fishing. She can't even swim!"

So you see - when it comes to church and particularly your pastors, often times your best is just never good enough!

An Ode To Communism...

Courtesy of one of this white man's favourite groups from the late 80's, Crimson Glory...

"Trapped in their world no free passage to leave

You accept their tyrannical dream

You pray to their gods not your chosen ones

Freedom's clutched in the jaws of red kings

Give us your freedom, we'll give you hell

Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil

Glory to red sharks

Answer to your red dictators

Feeding from your dreams

Cast into a sea of red sharks

Holding the power a hand that grips fate

Stripping from you all but fear

Hovering vultures like demons feed

On all who bow to their communist scheme

Give us your freedom, we'll give you hell

Hear no freedom, see no freedom, speak no freedom

Glory to red sharks
Answer to your red dictators
Feeding from your dreams
Cast into a sea of red sharks

Red sharks

Bloody red sharks!"

Verse For The Day...

There's Always Next Year...

Last night this white man had to pick up the shattered pieces of both his young son's dreams as their beloved Western Bulldogs took their leave from the 2008 AFL finals series courtesy of the Geelong Cats. It reminded me of a moment in my childhood from the early 1980's when my beloved Hawthorn Hawks played a finals game against the Carlton Blues. Hawthorn also lost that game and bowed out of the finals, much to the delight of my sister and brother (who, incidentally, didn't even really care that much about football) and to my dismay. I remember crying some silent tears of disappointment, wondering if I'd ever enjoy the pleasure of seeing the Hawks ever win anything. Of course if you know your AFL history you would know that no team dominated the football landscape like Hawthorn would do in the late 1980's. My hope, for my son's sake, is that the 'sons of the West' also move on from the disappointments of today to the dreams of tomorrow! And that old proverbial truth still rings in my ears - there's always next year!

Chocolate Chip Cookies...

As the elderly man lay dying in his bed, death's agony was suddenly pushed aside as he smelled the aroma of his favorite homemade chocolate chip cookies wafting up the stairs.
Gathering his remaining strength, he lifted himself from the bed. Leaning against the wall, he slowly made his way out of the bedroom, and with intense concentration, supported himself down the stairs, gripping the railing with both hands. In labored breath, he leaned against the door frame, gazing wide-eyed into the kitchen.
There, spread out upon newspapers on the kitchen table were literally HUNDREDS of his favorite chocolate chip cookies!
Was it heaven? Or, was it one final act of heroic love from his devoted wife, seeing to it that he left this world a happy man?
Mustering one great final effort, he threw himself toward the table, landing on his knees in a rumpled posture, one hand on the edge of the table. The aged and withered hand quiveringly made its way to a cookie near the edge of the table; feeling the warm soft dough actually made the pain of his bones subside for a moment. His parched lips parted; the wondrous taste of the cookie was already in his mouth; seemingly bringing him back to life.
What, then, was this sudden stinging that caused his hand to recoil?
He looked to see his wife, still holding the spatula she had just used to smack his hand.
"Stay out of those!" she said, "they're for the funeral."

Sometimes you just can't win!

Do Not Be Anxious...

"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Matthew 6:34

Whilst it can be said that many things in this white man's world annoy him from time to time, truly nothing vexes him more than people who have a habit of over-worrying. Honestly, it's people who are constantly anxious about their life and, especially in my world, church that find their way most easy under my skin. And I'm compelled to ask myself why that is? Because in my day-to-day sojourns I come across gossips, wealth-obsessed materialists, lazy philanderers and so on but it is worriers that cause me the most grief. So why? I believe for each and every person life brings its own unique joys, tears, triumphs, challenges and, most certainly, worries. If you're breathing God's air then that is the unquestionable reality of life. Worriers get to me because they, in the midst of their anxious conniptions, spew out their uninvited stress on me which is exactly what I neither need or requested to cope with. This white man has his own dramas to deal with - I don't need others adding to it needlessly with trivial anxieties that they should have the good measure to cope with themselves. Now that doesn't mean that I am uninterested in other peoples concerns - of course I care about the issues that others are dealing with that are significant. As a social worker for ten years, dealing with the issues of many dysfunctional clients was my bread and butter - and some would say that nothing much has changed with the exception of my current job title! If the problems are real then I am there to help and support the afflicted. But my ultimate bug-bear is those worriers amongst us who expertly predict their woes and troubleshoot issues that are not even issues yet!

So this white man says this - I choose to worry about the problems of today that are tangibly real in front of my two eyes. I will do my best to deal with the issues of the day of which I can affect meaningful change. On the flip-side - I choose not to allow fear forecasters to burden me with their anxiety-filled prophecies of doom and gloom and infect me with their stress! They are nothing more than control freaks who cannot deal with events outside of their control. I pity them greatly because they quench the true joy of life's unpredictability.

There - I said it and I feel better for it (and if this posting has added any stress to your day then I humbly apologise!) .

The Creation of Man...

"the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." Genesis 2:7

The Pale Blue Dot

Back in 1977, NASA launched two space probes to explore the farthest reaches of our solar system called Voyager 1 and 2. In 1990 NASA instructed Voyager 1 to look back at where it had come from and to take some images. One of them contained a picture of Earth taken from 4 billion miles away. It became known as the Pale Blue Dot picture, because that was all our Earth looked like in the vast expanse of space.

The astronomer and author Carl Sagan gave a talk that year - this excerpt is still one of this white man's favourite pieces of reflective wisdom ever written:

"We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you know, everyone you love, everyone you've ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines. Every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there - on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish this pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

Amen...

X Structure at the Core of the Whirlpool Galaxy

The "X" is due to absorption by dust and marks the exact position of a black hole which may have a mass equivalent to one-million stars like the sun. The darkest bar may be an edge-on dust ring which is 100 light-years in diameter. The edge-on torus not only hides the black hole and accretion disk from being viewed directly from earth, but also determines the axis of a jet of high-speed plasma and confines radiation from the accretion disk to a pair of oppositely directed cones of light, which ionize gas caught in their beam. The second bar of the "X" could be a second disk seen edge on, or possibly rotating gas and dust in MS1 intersecting with the jets and ionization cones. The size of the image is 1100 light-years.

That's the scientific explanation. It may also be the most stunning reminder to us all of who created this entire galaxy and the vast cosmos in which it dwells. And at the centre of this celestial wonder watching over our small cul-de-sac of the heavens is a cross. You decide...

"Praise Him, sun and moon, praise Him, all you shining stars..." Psalm 148:3

Verse For The Day...

Remembering That Day...

It is true. There are some days in history when you clearly remember where you were when something massively significant happened. This white man clearly remembers such a day seven years ago on 11th September 2001. Being late at night, around 11-11:30PM there was little on TV but having Foxtel back then I made a habit of watching FOX and CNN morning shows from the US. In that fateful 2-3 hours I held my six month old son Kim and watched the seemingly surreal become real in front of me. Completely transfixed, I saw the two planes plunge into the World Trade Centre Towers. Flashes of news also sped back and forward from New York to the Pentagon. Another plane had crashed in a field I recalled them saying - another one was rumoured to be heading towards the White House. And all the time, amongst the disbelief, the incredulity of that was happening, the pure shock of what I was seeing I could not help but wonder what kind of world Phuong and I had brought our son into. As he lay blissfully sleeping through one of the darkest, monumental life-altering moments in modern history the globe was left stunned and wondering what the future held for everyone.

And seven years on...I still often wonder. But I do believe that God can be found in and through Ground Zero because He has always been present since Year Zero. And where there is God there is hope. It is simple, many would say foolish, but this white man believes it. And let's face it - has anyone else put up any better solution yet?

One Way To Deal With Telemarketers!

This white man knows, as you do, that there is nothing more annoying than that dreaded phone call (always at dinner time) from some cheery individual masquerading as your best friend who then proceeds to try and sell you something. Telemarketers are a scourge upon our sanity and it seems there is nothing we can do about them. The previous Howard government introduced some system where you could be 'shielded' from Mumbai's pesty reach but still the calls sneakily intrude their way through to our lives. So are we completely helpless in the face of these irritating disturbances? Perhaps not! Listen to one intrepid and creative response to a telemarketer and learn how it is possible to completely turn the tables on these telephone vermin...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5z4Vs26-TI

Thank you God for creative minds and rich sense of humours to boot!

An Interesting Version...

A ten-year old, under the tutelage of her grandmother, was becoming quite knowledgeable about the Bible. Then one day she floored her grandmother by asking, "Which Virgin was the mother of Jesus? The Virgin Mary or the King James Virgin?"

I'm sure God laughed...

Some More Church Bulletin Madness!

Sermon Outline:
I. Delineate your fear
II. Disown your fear
III. Displace your rear

Next Friday we will be serving hot gods for lunch.

If you would like to make a donation, fill out a form, enclose a check and drip in the collection basket.

Nov. 11: An evening of boweling at Lincoln Country Club.

Women's Luncheon: Each member bring a sandwich. Polly Phillips will give the medication.

Karen's beautiful solo: "It is Well With My Solo."

Congratulations to Tim and Ronda on the birth of their daughter October 12 thru 17.

If you choose to heave during the Postlude, please do so quietly.

We are grateful for the help of those who cleaned up the grounds around the church building and the rector.

Hymn: "I Love Thee My Ford."

Newsletters are not being sent to absentees because of their weight.

Helpers are needed! Please sign up on the information sheep.

The Advent Retreat will be held in the lover level of St. Mary's Cathedral.

The District Duperintendent will be meeting with the church boared.

As soon as the weather clears up, the men will have a goof outing.

Fifth Sinday is Lent.

Thank you, dead friends.

Diana and Don request your presents at their wedding.

Lent is a period for preparing for Holy Weed and Easter.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget all His benefits.

For the word of God is quick and powerful...piercing even to the dividing asunder of soup and spirit.

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peach to men.

The lovers in the exhaust fan are not working.

Volunteers are needed to spit up food.

Head Deacon and Dead Deaconess

We pray that our people will jumble themselves.

Beware This Wolf!

First let me say this - this white man is usually disinclined to comment greatly on the claims (orthodox, heretical or otherwise) of other Christian leaders, pastors, preachers etc... because I believe strongly that all truth is revealed in time. The Jesus Christ I believe in espoused a "don't judge - no condemnation" policy that, in principle I choose to abide by. Yet occasionally even this white man is compelled to make an exception where he perceives that someone is so out of line with their teaching that they not only dupe thousands of believers with their brand of tripe but also make a mockery of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and His Church. And so, on that note, this white man has no hesitation in informing you of his opinion that Todd Bentley, centrepiece 'prophet' of the latest signs and wonders fad "the Florida Outpouring Revival" is a deluded, self-glorifying wolf in sheep's clothing! Rather than bother to introduce and describe this man and his ministry you can click on this link to get that background yourself: http://freshfire.ca/index.php?Id=101&pid=8&pid=103

And this white man will refrain from going into great reams of detail about Bentley's strange teachings and commonly accepted heresies. Again, you should just click on this link to view it for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqJaJzHdGaI

Again I say this - this white man is the last person to get hysterical about any nutter running around the church proclaiming this and that in Jesus' Name. Church charlatans like that receive enough publicity and over-exposure. That's what they crave - infamy, air-time and controversy... it's their oxygen, their life-blood. But believe me when I say this - Todd Bentley and his Lakeland Church and their 'revival' is pure poison. Stay away from it! He and his message are nothing more than a distraction from the true heart of worship, Jesus Christ. So Todd...you can take your angels, your angelic gold dust, your gems from heaven and your kung fu healing kicks and go lose yourself! Problem is...you're already lost...

Inspirational!

This white man sees some inspirational things happen at his gym from time to time. For example, witnessing old folks, who for all intensive purposes could be shuffling off into nursing home oblivion, still fronting up and doing exercise classes. There's also a wheelchair-bound paraplegic young lady who comes in twice a week to do weights with her helper. But the most inspirational person I've met recently is a young pregnant woman who has maintained her exercise regime well into her ninth month. I saw her last Monday waddling away on a treadmill and later doing a very pregnant pilates class. And today she was back at the gym showing off her newborn child which must have been born only days ago. And so after passing her little one around a group of clucky instructors she then proceeded to hand off her baby to her partner. Following that she jumped straight back onto a treadmill for 10 minutes and then the cross-trainer for another 10! That's inspirational!

Bulletin Bloopers...

Putting together the church bulletin is a tedious task - thank God He's got a sense of humour!

• Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person you want remembered.
  
• Bertha Belch, a missionary from Africa, will be speaking tonight at Calvary Methodist. Come hear Bertha Belch all the way from Africa.
  
• The Fasting & Prayer Conference includes meals. The sermon this morning: “Jesus Walks on the Water.” The sermon tonight: “Searching for Jesus.”
  
• Ladies, don’t forget the rummage sale. It’s a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Don’t forget your husbands.
  
• The peacemaking meeting scheduled for today has been canceled due to a conflict
  
• Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our community. Smile at someone who is hard to love. Say “Hell” to someone who doesn’t care much about you.
  
• Miss Charlene Mason sang, “I will not pass this way again,” giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.
  
• For those of you who have children and don’t know it, we have a nursery downstairs.
  
• Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get.
  
• Barbara remains in the hospital and needs blood donors for more transfusions. She is also having trouble sleeping and requests tapes of Pastor Jack’s sermons.
  
• The Rector will preach his farewell message after which the choir will sing: “Break Forth Into Joy.”
  
• Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days.
  
• A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow.

One Proactive Invitation to Tithe...

That's one way to encourage an increase in church coffers!

Collecting Cards & Memories...

One of the endearing memories that has stayed with this white man over the years from his childhood has been the never-ending search for collector football cards. You see before Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon and all those other Japanese card game creations. the only humble card that swappped hands in playgrounds everywhere were Scanlen's VFL (Victorian Football League) cards. I can still smell the bubblegum sticks that lay hidden in every pack. I can still recall the excitement of holding an unopened packet and trembling with anticipation as the packet was ripped apart and the cards laid bare for inspection. I remember fondly the unbridled joy of negotiating a great swap with some other kid under an oak tree that was a Camberwell South Primary School landmark. I remember the care taken in arranging all my cards into team order and placing them in photo albums for easy display. And finally I also remember my poor Dad exercising what must have been the patience of Job by running this white boy around to various milk bars searching out undiscovered footy card treasure!

And I find the wheel turning...One of this white man's real simple joys in life is to see his two sons fervently collecting cards. Not just footy cards though; the market for collector cards these days is broadly diverse to the point of being ridiculous. Kim and Luc love their AFL cards for sure, along with their NRL rugby league cards, Australian Cricket cards, WWE cards, Naruto cards, One Piece cards, Ben 10 cards, Marvel cards and the list goes on... I now sit back and laugh inside when I see my eldest son Kim immaculately, yet pedantically arranging his cards in their albums, going to great lengths to get the sequences correct and taking so much pride in his completed collections. Honestly it makes his dad feel 10 years old again! And so, this white man concludes that collecting cards must be genetic - well that's my excuse and I'm sticking by it!

Funny...but Sad...but True...

The Negroid Nazarene?

Couldn't help but also add this fine depiction of an African Jesus. I guess the greater question could well be this - is there a race on earth that hasn't yet interpreted and depicted the Christ within that cultural ethnicity? Probably not. I guess it really does confirm that Jesus was the True Son of Man.

The Chinese Jesus?

Found this on my travels surfing around Google images of various depictions of Jesus Christ. Now I've heard of Jesus being described as Asian, as in coming from a part of the world loosely regarded as part of greater Asia. But this Mandarin Messiah? You decide...

The Addictive Properties of Chilli...

One of the by-products of residing in a yellow-tinged world is that one has to make serious choices regarding food. And this is something this white man understands all too well. Very early on in my marriage I realised that if I was going to take full advantage of the delicious Vietnamese home cooking placed before me then I would need to appreciate more the fiery nuances of chilli. And so I began to eat a little more chilli...then a little more...until finally I could hold my head high and look clearly into an empty bowl of Bun Bo Hue (imperial Hue-style beef soup with lots of chilli) without tears in my eyes and 3rd degree burns in my mouth! Now I stand as a proud unashamed chilli-lover who can hold his own in the heat stakes with most of his fellow Vietnamese friends. But herein lies the problem.

It seems that once you have graduated to an admirable level of chilli appreciation then it means that you struggle to eat much of anything else without chilli! Any pizza I now eat must have chilli in order to be fully enjoyed. Any meat cooked at home must have either a spicy sauce or chilli accompanying it. Any soup served up must have chilli or at the very least a good dose of pepper in it. Even the small amount of chocolate this white man eats these days tastes better if it is chilli-laced chocolate! So therein lies the lesson - beware the amount of chilli you eat! Your chilli tolerance can grow and easily turn your tastebuds into infernal heat-craving chilli addicts! If there's a CA (chilli-holics anonymous) somewhere out there can someone please let me know?!