Yesterday I decided that I would spend the day with myself, doing things that I like doing and just caring for myself. It was my last day of work and I thought I would reward myself for some of the good things I’ve achieved this year and offer myself some kindness and grace in an effort to let go of some of the crappier things.

So I finished work at about 1.30 and went and had a salad roll at my favourite (yummy and very cheap) salad roll place. Then I went and got an eyebrow wax and a half hour massage. The wax sucked, it was painful and not well done but the massage really hit the spot. Then I came home, grabbed my swimming stuff and walked to the Ian Thorpe pool. I did my usual 22 laps and it felt good and then had a sauna just in case I wasn’t relaxed enough. From the pool I went and had dinner at the sushi train and read my book. I am a bit obsessed with sushi trains and my book. Then I went to the movies. I saw Twilight. There wasn’t anything else on and I was hoping it was going to be like Buffy, (you know vampires and stuff) but it wasn’t. In fact it wasn’t very good at all and certainly went against everything I had been reading about (I am reading Passionate Marriage which is all about differentiation, the concept of holding on to and validating yourself in your relationship and I can assure there was nothing differentiated about the relationship in twilight). However I didn’t care that much I just love seeing movies on my own, it feels so liberating. And I enjoyed the champagne and the choc top. After the movie I came home and went to bed feeling very relaxed and all prepared for my holidays.

If you venture into Chatswood at the moment all the people in the shops buying up big certainly leaves one a little confused about all the concern and drama that people won’t be spending enough money this year. If this is what an economic crisis looks like I don’t think we have much to worry about. Well only that nothing seems to stop us from spending and consuming in a time where we really need to. And that a slight downturn in our incredibly luxuourious lifestyles cause such anxiety.

40 more (out of the 150) Christmas Card to send
15 messages on the answering machine
5 more reports to receive and send
2 introductions (the volunteer and their friend)
1 interview
1 friendship ending (very messy)
As well as the general stuff that comes in
All in three days of work.
Yay for 15 days holidays!!

P.S. Due to some misunderstanding I wanted to say this is all work related, ie not cards for my friends and family but volunteers etc (so don’t be offended if you don’t get one, no one has really we didn’t get to it again this year); not 15 personal messages but for work; and not one of my friendship’s ending but one of the volunteer’s.

Today I finished reading Malachi and thus I have now read the whole Bible. It has taken me about three and half years which is a lot longer than I thought it would when I set out but that’s okay. I also set out to read it from beginning to end. I didn’t do this either but’s that’s okay too. If the Bible has gotton anything through it is grace. About half way through the old testamant (Chronicles I think) I was really tiring so I thought I would read some new testament instead and ended up reading it all. And then I went back to the Chronicles but got tired again before the prophets so I read the Gospels again. Then I got distracted by “Sabbabth Ecomics” so I read Exodus for a second time and we were reading some of Paul’s letters with my small group so I think they got read twice too. I finally got to the prophets which I finished today. And so the whole Bible.

Now having read the whole Bible for myself I can truly say I love it. I did find some of it boring, some of it offensive and some of it I didn’t understand at all but as a whole I think it’s marvellous. It deals with the biggest questions of life right to the most mundane and trivial parts of human existence.
I still don’t hold entirely conventional views of what the Bible is but the stories, the letters, the prayers, the poems, the dreams, the commands, the guidelines, the prophecies, the people and most importantly Jesus all give a very full picture of the nature of God. A God who can not be boxed into any neat categories at all. It no longer seems at all possible (although I am sure I will continue to do this, see below) to quote one part of the Bible as some kind of proof or answer to who God is or what He wants (and I am saying He because that is all our language allows for but I am not convinced that God is a male).

However, I will say (and no one will be supirsed to hear this from me) that I think the issue of God’s concern for the poor, the oppressed and those suffering or living on the margins in any way is a theme that runs clearly and powerfully throughout the whole Bible. Just one example from Zechariah chapter seven

“There nothing new to say on the subject. Don’t you still have the messages of the earlier prophets from the time when Jerusalem was still a thriving, bustling city. Well the message hasn’t changed: Treat one another justly. Love your neighbours, be compassionate with each other. Don’t take advantage of widows, orphans, visitors and the poor. Don’t plot and scheme against one another – that’s evil.

However, the whole Bible, the story of creation; the freeing of a people enslaved; the commands and guidelines given in the desert to a people learning to be the people of God; the prayers of David and the other psalmists; the people chosen to tell the stories; the anger and the desires expressed through the prophets; the life, the stories, the suffering of Jesus; the actions of the early church; the letters of James, Peter, John and even Paul; and the final images of a life to come all point to a God who loves the poor, who calls His people to do the same and even shows them how. I am convinced that there is still poverty, injustice and suffering not because God wills it or is punishing us but simply because we have not lived as we were called, because we have lived for ourselves and not for others and not for God. But I live in hope…

“But when all is said and done God’s temple on the mountain will dominte all mountains. People will stream to it saying, “Come let’s climb God’s mountain. He will teach us how to live.” True teaching will issue from Zion, God’s revelation from Jerusalem. He’ll establish justice in the rabble of the nations and settle disputes in faraway places. They’ll trade in their swords for shovels, their spears for rakes and hoes. Nations will quit fighting each other, quit learning to kill. Each man will sit under his own shade tree, each woman in safety will tend her garden.” Micah chapter four

There are not a lot of things in the world I like to do less than go shopping (retail therapy for example makes absolutly no sense to me) so I was pretty pleased that I managed to do all my Christmas shopping on Sunday afternoon (except for one thing which I bought on the way to work this morning and I knew where I was going and what I wanted so it was pretty easy).

I also managed to buy these things from 6 locations:
Oxfam, TEAR, Hoyts, Kmart, Gleebooks, and Emma’s Secret. Except for Kmart (in which I only bought one thing) I actually feel good about shopping from these places. Oxfam and TEAR go without saying; Gleebooks I feel okay about as it is an independent local shop and; Hoyts and Emma’s secret I feel alright about as I am giving people an experience that they will use rather than a piece of junk which will eventually become more stuff in the tips.

And we even got to fit in a movie for ourselves as well. We saw Australia. I actually quite liked it. While the characters weren’t well rounded and some of it a bit cliche it was enjoyable. It won’t go down as one of my favourites or anything but for the first time in awhile I didn’t leave feeling like I had been violated or with the weight of the world on my shoulders.

A week ago I wrote a post reflecting on how blessed I was. Unfortunately though I have found myself over the week beginning to worry and stress about a few things. Then today I went to Manly to have lunch my old friend Jenny. On the way back on the ferry I was praying and watching the beauty of the water and the dark clouds preparing for a storm over it and I was again struck by just how blessed I was. I came home and spent a lovely evening with Martin. We talked and ate nibbles and watched the rain coming down in the light of the sun. It was beautiful. As our discussion wore on later into the night we touched on a subject that has been of some worry and stress to me and things were slowly becoming heated. Then there was a knock on the door. I answered and it was a friend from Glebe. She was crying and very stressed. I invited her in but she refused she just wanted me to pray for her. I said I’d love to and she told me what was going on. We stood on my porch for a bit longer while she regained the strength to go home. I asked her if there was anything else I could do and she no, she just felt heaps better knowing that someone was praying. She went home and I went inside and Martin and I started praying. We prayed and prayed. After all that I had our little worries and stresses in perspective again and again felt really blessed. Gosh I am a slow learner. I really hope that I won’t forget this again any time soon

My computer is not working properly. It is very frstrating as now I can’t work properly. Grrrrrr Grrrrrr

“When I heard the news my heart fell on the floor
I was on plane on my way to Baltimore
In these troubled times it’s hard enough as it is
My soul’s known a better life than this.
I wondered how so many could be in so much pain
While others don’t seem to feel a thing
Then I cursed my whiteness and I get so damned depressed
In a world of suffering why should I be so blessed.”
Brett Dennen from so much more

A few weeks ago our dear friend’s Kat and Tom gave us a CD by Brett Dennen. For no particular reason, just that they thought we’d like him (don’t you love presents like that?) and we do like him, I especially love him. And he has been particularly helpful to be in the last week (Jo I hope that answers your question).

After a few years ban on intense, real life movies I decided that I should crawl out of my hole and go and watch one. I think I ended my drought more intensely than I should. Tuesday night I saw “The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo”. I was invited by the one of the girls from the migrant and refugee department at work who had a free ticket and convinced me using the tag line “their stories need to be heard”. As you can imagine it was simply horrendous. It was a documentary and the woman who made it was there on the night. She had been gang raped herself and said, as the tag line did that she and these women want their stories to be told because until they are nothing will be done. So I sat through an hour and half listening to women tell stories of been raped by up to 7 men at a time, with guns and pieces of wood and anything else they could get their hands on. Stories of rejection after been raped as their husbands and families will no longer have them as well as the fact that many can no longer control their bladders and bowels. This has happened to literally hundreds of thousands of women. Such large scale rape is a strategy of war, a war that she believes is been fought on a large part due to the fact that the Congo has 80% of the world’s coaltan, a metal used in mobile phones and laptops. There were some Congolese women in the audience. One, perhaps two, who were sitting behind began to weep and wail half way through. It was a sound I won’t forget for awhile.

Then on Wednesday as I was still recovering Ryan somehow convinced me to go and see a film as part of the Mexican film festival titled “La Zona” or “The Zone. That was a bad decision. I can not say it was equally as horrendous as the greatest silence” but it wasn’t good. All about inequality and corruption in Mexico. How the lives of the poor are just traded for money and power and everyone assumes their lives and deaths will just go un-noticed. And for the most part they do I suppose except by their mothers and one of the last scenes of this film was that of a mother searching for her missing son.

I came home and listened to Brett Dennen:

“I don’t feel comfortable with the way my clothes fit
I can’t get used to my bodies limit
I got some fancy shoes to chase away these blues
They cost a lot money but they aren’t worth a thing
I want to free my feet from the broken glass and concrete
I want to get away from this city
And lay upon the ground staring a hole in the sky
Wondering where we go when we die”

Last week I bought a little sewing kit for $2.50. It has needles, thread, scissors, safety pins, buttons as well as some other things I don’t know what to do with. It was a satisfying buy I tell you what but the satisfaction of such a bargain was no where near enough to prepare me for the satisfaction of sewing up some of my ripped clothes tonight. Boy o boy is that satisfying. And fun too. Although what a little, old couple Martin and I would have looked like tonight, 9.30 drinking a cuppa, him asleep me sewing and listening to my new favourite Brett Dennen