Some Fun... [via Aimee]

You're the United Nations!

Most people think you're ineffective, but you are trying to
completely save the world from itself, so there's always going to be a long
way to go.  You're always the one trying to get friends to talk to each
other, enemies to talk to each other, anyone who can to just talk instead of
beating each other about the head and torso.  Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, and you get very schizophrenic as a result.  But your heart is in the right place, and sometimes also in New York.
Take the Country Quiz at the Blue yramid

Hmm there you go...

ANZAC Day

I thought following Deb's Anzac Day post; I'd post a couple of my own thoughts.

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Each year as we come to ANZAC Day; there is a feeling that it is ANZAC Day more than Australia Day, or Federation that is our national day; or symbolises what we value as Australian. We see this in the growing numbers of Australian’s who make the pilgrimage to Gallipoli and the Dawn Service.

Hugh Mackay in his book Turning Point: Australian’s Choosing Their Future puts it like this:

Anzac Day .. captures the essence of how Australia began, and how we have built on from a shaky start to make something worthwhile of ourselves...
...ANZAC Day may turn out to be the festival we are looking for; the one that acknowledges the importance of our past as a resource for evaluating present and creating the future. Anzac Day says with a voice that grows louder every year, that we expect something good to happen; that we are still capable of becoming the society that would justify the sacrifice of those who thought we were worth fighting for...
...The question that Anzac Day asks is ‘what have we done with the peace that was won for us?’...

The other trend for Anzac Day over the last few years is to the scheduling of ‘Anzac Day’ test matches (Australia v New Zealand) and the traditional AFL game between Collingwood and Essendon. As these sportsman play on this day, and more generally; we hear of their hero status. It is another point in how we have in this Country glorified our sportsmen and women. They are not heroes; to borrow a quote from Bono – in describing himself – and how he and other entertainers are referred to as heroes. He says – [we are] not heroes, we are selfish people who enjoy what we do. And sportsman I would think generally are similar, they enjoy what they do.

Heroes; to borrow Hugh Mackay again; stir in us an expanded sense of Human potential; they heighten our sense of what we can do, and who we can be. Today’s Heroes he goes on to say may be the old style – the explorer for example who sacrifices his life that the party could go on; but may now be unsung; and possibly fighting private battles against, ignorance, prejudice, intolerance and apathy.

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Wanted to finish with a prayer from the APB – We on Anzac Day, remembered the fallen from the previous wars, but we ought also remember our servicemen and women on assignment, be it Iraq; or elsewhere.

Eternal God, the only source of peace; we pray for all who serve us in the defence forces of this land; Give them courage, and comfort in all dangers; comfort also their families; their wives; their husbands; and their children in their absence; And help us we pray, to seek for all people; the freedom to serve you and each other in peace and justice; we ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

.. the sky is falling in … (Radiohead Review: Sydney 2004).

Wow – where do I start? In 1998 I went and saw Radiohead, with limited expectations, and had my socks blown off …on Friday, I went and saw them again, with somewhat greater expectations. And again; though the show wasn’t flawless, it blew my socks off.

Thom was not that interactive with the crowd; and the band had problems getting the piano working. But all that aside the intensity and quality of the bands performance was amazing. I was not that familar with the Kid A, and Amnesiac material but it sure did come accross well.

I've included the setlist below. They did a variety of material from the three latest CDs – Hail to the Thief; Amnesiac; and Kid A; three from OK Computer; and a couple from The Bends. It was a good set list – yet missed a few of my favourites from ‘The Bends’. (the following night they played a few more from the Bends - [Nice dream]; Just; Fake Plastic Trees; No Surprises, but did miss Karma Police).

Highlights, definitely were Paranoid Android; Exit Music (for a film); Pyramid Song; Karma Police; Planet Telex and My Iron Lung, and along with those songs the bass-line of Climbing Up the Walls you felt right through you; the clapping through How to Disappear Completely.

Sydney April 23 2004 AD Sydney Entertainment Centre

setlist
01. there there
02. 2 + 2 = 5
03. myxomatosis
04. morning bell
05. kid a
06. my iron lung
07. backdrifts
08. pyramid song
09. i might be wrong
10. go to sleep
11. where i end and you begin
12. you and whose army?
13. climbing up the walls
14. the national anthem
15. exit music (for a film)
16. paranoid android
17. sit down. stand up.

encore 1
18. planet telex
19. sail to the moon
20. idioteque
21. how to disappear completely

encore 2
22. karma police
23. everything in its right place

Though the Radiohead concert tonight has been cancelled; Triple J will be airing a special acoustic set; and the bands 2003 not 1998, as I first mentioned, Glastonbury Festival set as well. Though not quite the concert we were hoping for, it still should be good. :-)

Follow the link here to the Sydney Morning Herald's review of the Sydney Shows.

Easter Convention..

Went to Katoomba Easter Convention over the weekend. Helped out in the bookstall mostly. Great fun. And heard most of the talks too.
We had three great speakers: David Jones, Kanishka Raffel and Jonathan Dykes.

The messages of the weekend were Cross-focused, and for that reason challenging. Kanishka challenged us with comments that we underestimate the Word of God, we underestimate the Love of God, we underestimate the potential of money for the Gospel, and we underestimate the danger of money as well.

David reminded us of the Servant King, the Dying King, and the Living King.

For me the weekend was summed up in these six words from David's last talk -

Come and see, Go and tell.

We have seen Jesus, indigant at death, weeping at death, we've seen Jesus wash his disciple's feet, we've seen the empty tomb, we've seen the Risen Christ - SO - Go and tell, tell of what we've have seen, a man, who did not consider it robbery to be like God, but humbled himself, even to death on a cross - he died that we would be restored.

These are my first brief thoughts - will write more later - there was so much there - and like every convention, I've done the easy bit - sat in the auditorium, heard the Gospel, now the hard bit: to apply these lessons not simply today, tomorrow, but next week, next month, next year, and until My LORD and My God calls me Home.