I am at work and I have nothing really to do. I don’t feel good about that as they are paying me. This is the first time that this has happened which is good. I hope it doesn’t happen a lot. I am waiting for lots of phone calls you see and emails and stuff. When people reply I will have something to do.

I don’t have the nicest office at work. There is no window and it is kind of dreary coloured. It is also pretty small. Smallness is not that big a deal to me but I would love a window. I try to get out at lunch time as there is a lovely park across the road and I have enjoyed many a luch break sitting there reading but I don’t always mange. I have decorated it a little though to make it feel homely and add some colour. I have a photo of Martin and I that Jo took when he first got here. He looks very cute. And I also have some pictures from TEAR magazines and a Luenig prayer that goes like this.

“We give thanks for the invention of the handle.
Weithout it there waoulkd be many things we couldnt’ hold on to.
As for the thigns that we can’t hold on to anyway, let us gracefully accept their ungrasable nature and celebrate all things elusive, fleeting and intangible.
They mystify us adn make us us recptive to truth and beauty.
We celebrate and give thanks.
Amen.”

Should be studying, should be getting ready to go to Rough Edges,should be having a rest but I am not doing any of those things I am blogging.

Feeling pretty good at the moment. Work is good, though having to work on Saturdays is a bit sucky. Home is good. Martin is good, now that we have made the first year it is all smooth sailing from here. Wishful thinking I am sure but things are pretty peaceful at the moment. God is good, The weather is good, I really love this time of year, autumn is just so snuggly without being too cold. Uni is good, but I guess that is because we are almost on holidays. The food I ate last night was good.

It really is time to go.

Well there is lots going on in my life at the moment and it is all really good stuff. Things in my new job here at Vinnies are going great. I really like it. My first big task has been to ring up all the volunteers and introduce myself and see how things are going between them and their friends. Most people have been great and have been very open in telling me their stories and sharing their struggles. Some of them I really don’t know how to respond to which makes me feel a little overwhelmed but I think they just like the opprtunity to talk. Some of the issues I can relate to. They are similiar issues that I have dealt with at Rough Edges. Namely feeling like I am not really doing anything and feeling like I will never understand people’s issues.

I have to run a peer support meeting soon and I think I will address the issue of understanding. I want to use a quote from a fantastic book that I just read called “the curious incident of the dog in the night time”. I think that is the name. Anyway I totally reccommend it to anyone it is so good. It is written through the eyes of a little boy with Aspergers Syndrome and it gives one more understanding of the illness than any text book could give. Most of it is specific to Aspergers but some of it can give you a small glimpse into the issues that many people with Mental Illness may have. I will write a section here that I may use which I just love.

“All the other children at my school are stupid. Except I am not meant to call them stupid, even though this is what they are. I’m meant to say that they have learning difficulties or they have special needs. But this is stupid beacuse everyone has learning difficulties beacuse learning to speak French or understading Relativity is difficult, and also everyone has special needs, like Father who has to carry a packet of artificial sweetening tablets around with him to put into his coffee to stop him getting fat, or Mrs Peters who wears a beige coloure hearing aid, or Siobhan who has glasses so thick that they give you headache if you borrow them, and noe of these people are Special Needs, even if they have special needs.

But Siobhan said we have ti use those words becuase people used to call children like the children at school spaz and crip and mong which are nasty words. But that is stupid too because sometimes the children from the school down the road see us in the street when we are getting off the bus and they shout, “Special Needs! Special Needs! Special Needs!” But I don’t take any notice of them because I don’t listen to what other people say and only sticks and stones can break my bones and I have a Swiis Army Knife if they hit me and if I kill them it will be self defence and I won’t go to prison”

Sadnes does not last forever ewhen we walk in the direction of that which we always desired.
Is it always necessary to leave?
It’s always necessary to know when a stage of one’s life has ended. If you stubbornly cling to it after the need has passed you loss the joy and the meaning of the rest, and you risked being shaken to your senses by God.

The Fifth Mountain, Paulo Coehlo, conversation between Elijah and the widows son when Elijah is leaving.

I have been carrying this around in my diary for awhile and wanting to do something with it. Nothing has come to me except blog it. It has been helpful to me. I love my new house and my new job but there has been some letting go involved which has like all letting go being a little painful. Also being on the journey with David and being with him in his pain about leaving and that bringing up lots of fears about my own inevitable departure from this country for who knows how long I have found it a comfort. Hopefully I will remember where to find it when that time comes. Anyway n

I just find out about the postponement of the U2 tickets. I am sad and worried that it will be cancelled altogether.

I like being awake late at night so much more than I like getting up early. It is so quiet and relaxing and I think I have been more productive on some of my assessments tonight than I have all week. I am trying to get a good start on them so it is less stessful when I start work. My Spanish one is relatively interesting. It is about the film motorcycle diaries. I was very interested to find out that many of the interactions between Ernesto “Che” Guevara and the local people were not actually scripted. They were completely improvised. I like that it gives it a more authentic feel.

The only problem with late nights is that the cockroaches seem to think that I want their company and I don’t. Also Martin is definitley a morning person so our hours seem to clash., Well can’t really complain, compared to some of the dilemas of marriage that is a relatively small one.

I have found myself in some wonderful conversations lately with some wonderful friends and the topic of libertion theology has come up. I really like liberation theology. In fact I would have to say it is a theology that I have felt most comfortable adn passionate about probably ever but I realised that I had forgotton many of things that I read when I was researching it. Also that I was having trouble articulating it as the research I did was in Spanish and I wasn’t really able to translate it. So I read some more things on the internet and will put some of it here for the people that I couldn’t really explain it to and for anyone else who is interested cause I think it is good. It may be a little controversial which I am little nervouse about but well I think I will do it anyway.

“Liberation theology, a term first used in 1973 by Gustavo Gutierrez, a Peruvian Roman Catholic priest, is a school of thought among Latin American Catholics according to which the Gospel of Christ demands that the church concentrate its efforts on liberating the people of the world from poverty and oppression.

Liberation theologians believe that the orthodox doctrine of God tends to manipulate God in favor of the capitalistic social structure. They claim that orthodoxy has been dependent upon ancient Greek notions of God that perceived God as a static being who is distant and remote from human history. These distorted notions of God’s transcendence and majesty have resulted in a theology which thinks of God as “up there” or “out there.” Consequently the majority of Latin Americans have become passive in the face of injustice and superstitious in their religiosity. Liberation theology responds by stressing the incomprehensible mysteriousness of the reality of God. God cannot be summarized in objectifying language or known through a list of doctrines. God is found in the course of human history. God is not a perfect, immutable entity, “squatting outside the world.” He stands before us on the frontier of the historical future (Assmann). God is the driving force of history causing the Christian to experience transcendence as a “permanent cultural revolution” (Gutierrez). Suffering and pain become the motivating force for knowing God. The God of the future is the crucified God who submerges himself in a world of misery. God is found on the crosses of the oppressed rather than in beauty, power, or wisdom.

The biblical notion of salvation is equated with the process of liberation from oppression and injustice. Sin is defined in terms of man’s inhumanity to man. Liberation theology for all practical purposes equates loving your neighbor with loving God. The two are not only inseparable but virtually indistinguishable. God is found in our neighbor and salvation is identified with the history of “man becoming.” The history of salvation becomes the salvation of history embracing the entire process of humanization. Biblical history is important insofar as it models and illustrates this quest for justice and human dignity. Israel’s liberation from Egypt in the Exodus and Jesus’ life and death stand out as the prototypes for the contemporary human struggle for liberation. These biblical events signify the spiritual significance of secular struggle for liberation.

The church and the world can no longer be segregated. The church must allow itself to be inhabited and evangelized by the world. “A theology of the Church in the world should be complemented by a theology of the world in the Church” (Gutierrez). Joining in solidarity with the oppressed against the oppressors is an act of “conversion,” and “evangelization” is announcing God’s participation in the human struggle for justice.

The importance of Jesus for liberation theology lies in his exemplary struggle for the poor and the outcast. His teaching and action on behalf of the kingdom of God demonstrate the love of God in a historical situation that bears striking similarity to the Latin American context. The meaning of the incarnation is reinterpreted. Jesus is not God in an ontological or metaphysical sense. Essentialism is replaced with the notion of Jesus’ relational significance. Jesus shows us the way to God; he reveals the way one becomes the son of God. The meaning of Jesus’ incarnation is found in his total immersion in a historical situation of conflict and oppression. His life absolutizes the values of the kingdom, unconditional love, universal forgiveness, and continual reference to the mystery of the Father. But it is impossible to do exactly what Jesus did simply because his specific teaching was oriented to a particular historical period. On one level Jesus irreversibly belongs to the past, but on another level Jesus is the zenith of the evolutionary process. In Jesus history reaches its goal. However, following Jesus is not a matter of retracing his path, trying to adhere to his moral and ethical conduct, as much as it is re-creating his path by becoming open to his “dangerous memory” which calls our path into question. The uniqueness of Jesus’ cross lies not in the fact that God, at a particular point in space and time, experienced the suffering intrinsic to man’s sinfulness in order to provide a way of redemption. Jesus’ death is not a vicarious offering on behalf of mankind who deserve God’s wrath. Jesus’ death is unique because he historicizes in exemplary fashion the suffering experienced by God in all the crosses of the oppressed. Liberation theology holds that through Jesus’ life people are brought to the liberating conviction that God does not remain outside of history indifferent to the present course of evil events but that he reveals himself through the authentic medium of the poor and oppressed.”

There are some things in this that I struggle with just as there are some things in more traditional teologies that I struggle with but most of it excites me and inspires me. Especially as someone who hopes to livee and understand more the often radical spirituality of Latin America especially Peru.

Okay everyone this is the first blog post to come out of our Simmons Street home as it now has internet and a phone. I am very excited.

I am very excited about our new home in general really. It is a great home. When I wake up in the morning in our new room and I see all the space we have it makes me smile. And then I walk out into our lounge room which is so beautifully decorated by us and into our kitchen with its lovely brick wall and arches I feel even more happy. And of course there are the amazing bunch of people that I live with who I just love to chat to. And no we haven’t had any fights yet, which is what everyone keeps asking me. We do have our first house gathering tonight though…….

The other great thing about this house is that it is so close to everything. If I want some milk I am just three minutes from the shop. Or if I want to go out I am like one minute from a huge variety of restaurants. We have already ate some thai and Martin and I went to the Peruvian restaurant down the road too. It is great to have a Peruvian restaurant so close but I think Martin cooks a better ceviche. It is also very close to uni. On Monday getting home from Spanish in 15 minutes instead of 40 was so great.

Anyway that is enough of a rave about our house but do come around anyone and visit us anytime. We love visiors and I reckon 90% of the time someone will be home.

Hey I am writing in the middle of class. Can you believe it computers in adult education. What is the world coming too.

I can not write long as I have a parking meter that is ticking away and so many things to do but I wanted to blog that I got the job. Yay I am so excited, I can’t believe it. I have to go for a medical first and as long as that is all fine I will start soon.

As usual I have to say that my community has been lamazing. My lovely referees of course and all the people that played my games so I could practce for the presentation and Janet who helped me prepare for the interview. Also all the people that listened to me and prayed for me I really appreciate.