Thieves in the temple

Fascinating op-ed in the New York Times (more on clergy burnout here), in central point of the article is that there's fundamental problem [for clergy] that no amount of rest and relaxation can help solve: congregational pressure to forsake one's highest calling. Church goers want pastors to soothe and entertain them rather than change them to live their confession.

Here this conclusion:

Ministry is a profession in which the greatest rewards include meaningfulness and integrity. When those fade under pressure from churchgoers who don't want to be challenged or edified, pastors become candidates for stress and depression. 

Clergy need parishioners who understand that the church exists, as it always has, to save souls by elevating people's values and desires. They need churchgoers to ask for personal challenges, in areas like daily devotions and outreach ministries.

[Read more on G. Jeffrey MacDonald's website here].

page turners ...

Recently read ..
Musicophilla - Oliver Sacks - found this to be a fascinating read about how our brain interprets music.
Post-birthday world - Lionel Shriver - about the nature of choice.

Currently reading..
Mao's Last Dancer - Li Cunxin - really enjoyable read .. almost done.
March of the Patriots - Paul Kelly - I've been taking my time reading this, but its a good look about PM's Keating and Howard time and the links between them.

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And U2 resumed their tour today .. here's the songs they played, a few surprises...

Some more random pieces

• Dispelling Myths about 'Boat People (from the CASE Blog, and links to this interview on the UNSW website)
• Brooke Fraser ... Something in the water - the base line is reminiscent of Albertine; will have to listen to it a little more to understand what she is singing about. The album "Flags" is out on October 12, and listen online now.
• via NPR listen to the Swell Season (from the Newport Folk Festival) and Arcade Fire's 'The Suburbs')

on the poll

Interesting piece by CPX's Director John Dickson in the SMH on the Christian vote, here's a four key points:

• First, a Christian vote is a vote for others. It is basic to the Christian outlook that life is to be devoted to the good of others before ourselves.
• Second, the moral health of our community will provide another motivation for the Christian vote.
• Third, Christians will think of promoting the Christian message.
• Finally, Christians will mainly have in mind the poor and powerless.

I also found this point interesting: Christians should be willing to change voting patterns after Christian reflection on particular policies. A believer who cannot imagine voting for the ''other side'' has either determined that only one party aligns with the will of God or, more likely, is more attached to their cultural context than to the wisdom of scripture.

Will be interesting to see what debate this stirs in tomorrows paper.

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Wednesday's paper had a great piece on 15 questions which won't be addressed by the election ... well worth a read.

August 21 ...

It's on (a five week campaign)  ... here's hoping its a positive campaign about what the Australia become..  but we'll see.

The key slogan for the Labour Party is: "Moving forward together to a Stronger and Sustainable Australia".
[Gillard's speech] - via SBS

The key slogan for the Liberal/Nationals is "A great people deserve a great Government not a Gillard Government."
[Abbot's Speech] via SBS

So at the moment, it looks like the Coalition will run a negative campaign -- you can't trust this government; will Gillard serve a full term, and the Labour party (at the moment at least) is talking about moving forward.

the octopus and August 21

Given this article (sadly Paul was unavailable) it looks like Labour and Gillard will win the election. So, can we spare the expense and not worry about the next five weeks and just move forward? ;-)

World cup

I haven't posted this just yet .. but given the world cup has now finished, I can say that only one team went through undefeated ..  [drum roll]  New Zealand. The coach Ricki Herbert reflects on the campaign here. And no, he won't coach Australia ;)

"Westerners on white horses..."

Fascinating article by Nick Kristof from the NYT's about how he, and I guess at lot of western journalists, report about Africa.

Never tear us apart

Here's a great cover of INXS's Never Tear Us Apart by Beck's Record
Club (featuring St. Vincent, Liars, Os Mutantes)

technology is oh-so "creepy"

I am not ready to accept that a person's online profile - be it on Facebook, a dating site or some other manufactured and commercially constructed environment - can ever be a substitute for a way a human presents themselves in person.

What is diminished when we filter our personalities through the interweb is the essential stuff of humanness - a person's capacity for empathy, their uniqueness and idiosyncrasies, the quirky way they respond to a social environment. [SMH]

I think there may be some truth in this...

an election on the horizon...

Here's an interesting piece by Ross Gittins wondering why Gillard has to run to the poll. Especially given the start Gillard has made. But its also might be totally irrelevant given the news headlines today.

Time to seek the lost?

Greg Clarke and Simon Smart (CPX) on refugees. interesting read. Need to take some to think about the issue some more.

Some random shorts..

On the world cup -- one of the good pieces about the world cup was how the players who were featured in the Nike advertisement all had "ordinary" world cup...  I'm hoping for a Netherlands v Spain final given that neither Spain or the Netherlands have won the world cup yet..

On the next challenge for Julia Gilliard -- how will she look at the issue of refugees

On faith and politics ... how to churches understand government ... and how the government understand churches (in the UK)

The Romantic Comedy ... (for men)

As you'll know the World Cup is currently being held in South Africa ...  and one thing I've often thought is that sport could well be described as a romantic (perhaps tragic) comedy for men ...  reading this, it seems I'm not the only...

And, in terms of the on field action ... I couldn't be happier with how the All Whites went, three draws is a respectable performance.  Australia did okay, I think the most dissappointing thing was the way they played during their loss to Germany, it was almost as if they weren't giving it a go.  It doesn't do Auatralia (or England) much credit when they blame the referee for their results. The ref doesn't ruin the game with his decisions, its what makes sport, sport. I'm not so keen on goal-line technology (or video replays) - leave the decisions to those on the field..

As for a winner ..  I'd say now its pretty close between Argentina and Brazil, but we'll see, as it has been a tournament of shocks.

June shorts ...

I've been watching the Football World Cup. Been quite an exciting ride so far with a few of the big names not getting out of the group stages, and New Zealand's performance (two draws, against Slovakia and Italy) has been great. It was funny to find out that if both Italy (v Slovakia), and New Zealand (v Paraguay),  have identical draws (ie 1-1); the team to progress into the second round will be decided by the toss of a coin~! (Not that this will actually happen mind you).

Its been quite an interesting with the media circus around that Australian team; the implosion of both the French and English teams. (I'm thinking the favourites to win would be Brazil, Argentina and maybe the Netherlands). Here's who could qualify for the second round .

I just bought a DVD of U2's concert from Pasadena last year ... I've literally just got to fourth song, but its been quite impressive so far ... the stage is amazing. Tthe new songs have grown on me too. Will write more on this once I've seen the full concert. 

I've also been able to read a couple of Neil Gaiman's books (Stardust and Coraline), both of which I really loved; and I also read Cloud Atlas (David Mitchell) which I found a little tough going in places, but worth it ...  just started The City and The City (by China Melville)

In Brief ...

on the soccer .. so the socceroos went down 4-0 this morning. Sure its a touch dissappointing, yet the Aussies are exactly where we expected them to be. The Germans are not one of the best in the world for no reason, and there performance this morning was awesome. Will be interesting to see how the Kiwi's go.

Via NPR, I've been listening to a few performances from Bonnaroo. So far I've heard Tori Amos and Mumford and Sons, which have both been great. Look forward to seeing what else is there.

Also am interested in reading the new book by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen - Worse than War (on Genocide). (Here's more about the book).

To finish, here's an article on Facebook and its impact on young people.

Christian music on the radio

Was intrigued by the fact that: "forty-eight of the top 50 Christian songs in the last decade were by males, a figure primarily determined by women who listen to Christian radio. Why don't they want to hear their female peers on the air?".

Weekend recap

Been a great weekend, after a wet week we made the most of our Saturday and spent the day in the Blue Mountains. On the agenda was a little walk to the Bridal Veil Falls at Blackheath, and just a little
bit of window-shopping. Today, I went to the special Survive Past Five service at Barneys which aimed to celebrate, raise awareness and pray for mothers and children particularly those around the world whose expectations are vastly different to ours. It was a really challenging morning. Read more about the Millennium Development Goals here; and here.

Since then, I've just been watching the Swan's win against the Bombers (quite an exciting game -19 lead changes), and catching up on a bit of reading. Here's a couple of pieces which have been sitting on my web-browser for a while. In the first of these David Brooks writes about the limit of policy, given cultural differences. The second is about umpires and "errors". I'm all for keeping the human element in sport; and not going down the path of replays for everything. With the World Cup now only 6 days away - here's a piece on the experience many in Australia will have, over the next month or so.

Petro Georgiou's Valedictory speech

I have been impressed with Petro Georgiou, the Liberal member for Kooyong, particularly how the took on the rights of refugees during the final years of Howard's Government. Unfortunately he is not standing this
year, but his final speech is great reading. (Here's how the SMH reported it).

On Coffee

So it seems, my morning coffee may not have the effect I think it does ...