Monday, November 24, 2008

Twisted


We have a pine tree in our yard.  In a few months, the tree will provide pine nuts for the local parrots.
This tree is normally a near perfectly round, ornamental tree.  But the storm has changed the tree's orientation.

Over a year ago, I had the opportunity to take a trauma ministry workshop run by the US military chaplains.  The context they used was, of course, military; however, the information presented was easily extracted and put into any trauma situation.  

One point made was that trauma can twist an individual's view of God.  We were then given some tools to help correct that.  Step one - make sure my orientation didn't get twisted.

Friday, November 21, 2008

Update

Well, huge orange tarps cover our roof and overall they are doing a wonderful job.  Mother Nature, however, is severely challenging Mals ability to be a good steward of the nice home God has blesses us with.  Every day is hot and humid and every afternoon more thunderstorms, wind, rain and in some places hail, so every morning Mal gets up and resets the tarps from where the wind has moved them to where the need to be.  Every evening storm leaves Mal pacing exclaiming that he can't believe the wind has moved the tarps again.  I am also amazed because the tarps are not only roped down but are actually bolted to the brick walls of the house.  But for the most part the tarps are doing what they should be doing.  UPDATE:  The SES have just come to check tarps after last night's wind and offered Mal a job with North Queensland  crew.  He will be chuffed.

In addition to all our goings and comings, our house has been a staging area for food and water distribution.  There has been, I don't know how many people or how much food go through our house into the community for families and workers.  

My washing machine only gets about 8 hours rest a day, the same as the rest of us.  

On Wed the storm that came through made Mal's daughter Sally a victim as well.  Her unit sits above the garage and is near a creek.  The storm washed all the debris down the creek to a bridge where it flooded and filled Sally's garages with nearly a meter of water and mud.  She lost much of the stuff she had stored in the garage.  Every storm brings more damage to more communities all around.  Flooding is happening all over the country.

The neighbourhoods are for the most part travel-able so on the outside things appear quite normal but I know that inside homes people are still reeling.  There is subtle damage.  Our neighbour and friend died suddenly on Wed.  He was elderly so you can't really say that it was storm damage but it leaves you wondering.  

Thank you everyone for your prayers and support.  We (our whole community) will soon be back on its feet because of your response.  

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Red Cross

I was not ready for the Red Cross to knock on my door.  Mal and I are doers.  I can't think that I have ever received much of anything but prayers and comfort, maybe a meal at anytime.  But today the Red Cross came to help us.  Our roof only has Mal's plastic patches and more storms are on the way.  We have been offered tarps and financial assistance.  The same as all our neighbours have received.  And we took them up on the tarp offer.  It is a necessity.  I was impressed by the effort of a volunteer who explained how to identify bad stress and where to go for help.  There are 600 or so Army men helping out down our street.  There are volunteers from other states.  The Prime Minister has been here and declared it a National Disaster area and we are to receive federal aid at some stage.  Our house was a staging area for the church to provide lunch to volunteers.  It hadn't occurred that we are also part of the disaster.  Thank you all who support the Red Cross.  God Bless you.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Monday, November 17, 2008

Storm 2008




Well, we were in a bad storm.  Mal was away but came home because of it.  The damage in our suburb is some of the worst I have ever seen.  The wind has blown off roofs, blown trees into cars and into houses.  Our roof no longer sheds water the way it should.  There is water in our walls.  Mal has repaired it so to speak but the repairs will not last long if the wind blows again.  The view of the park we had has changed.  The tall big gum trees are all gone, nothing but a fraction of the size they used to be.  Most of them left standing will not recover.  This has been a sobering experience.  I had a quick trip to college and Brisbane city was about its daily Monday business and seemed to not even know that an entire suburb had been flattened.  Wow.

PS:  We are all fine.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Post Marks

Why does so much of the mail that I receive from the US have postmarks from Europe?  This recently received letter was stamped in Zurich, Switzerland.  Previous letters marked in Munich.  I wonder....

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

The Game

If you visited the Journey site, I linked to in the last blog (even if only to check if I was really published), you would have seen the headlines of the November issue is “worship wars”.  So here it is, the long awaited position of Linda on music in worship.


Think of it like this.


There is this soccer team right, each player on the team has his own personal ball.  They may have gotten this ball as a gift from a loving parent when they were very little.  This young person played with the ball with parents, neighborhood friends, cousins probably played with anyone.  The purpose of this play was probably just for fun but the result was developing skills.  This young person then joins a team, like their-self, all the other players on the team have their own personal ball.  All of them bring their own balls to practice.  They move each others balls between them in drills, often repetitive, honing each skills individually.  As they get better, the coach comes along and introduces more skills.  Then they have a practice game, all the players on the team set their individual balls aside and use a ball that the coach has selected.  This ball may be a worn game ball but the standard will be consistent with regulations, unlike each individual ball which could have a variance in standard, not enough variance that it impedes the development of skill but varied none the less.  All the while, this player continues to practice with his ball at home or he won’t get to play in the big game.  When it comes to game day, the ball is a regulation ball.


Now, how would the team go if everyone tried to play the game with their own ball that they brought from home.  Chaos,  Or, how would it be if even if all the players left their ball on the sidelines and ran around chasing the ball on the field yelling, “My ball!”  Again, I think the individual’s focus on the ball being theirs and what that means to them, well, destroys the team.


I see worship sort of like this.  I individually know God, received faith as a gift from no other than God, Godself.  I use this individual faith at home, I practice it; challenging every day events with the gift that God has given.  But, eventually, I realize that this is not only fun at home, there can be more and I join a team.  In that team’s study group, I bounce around my gift, and experience skill building with it and with the gifts that others have, their own personal gifts.  I hone my discipleship.  Sometimes, by repetitive drills, doing them over and over again.  Sometimes, it is not for my sake but I am forces to repeat them because someone on my team needs more practice with that skill.  Sometimes they repeat things for me.  This is done under the watchful eye of a spiritual leader, one who knows the game, knows the big picture, one who continues to practice theirs skills and their skills should be evident.  Occasionally, the spiritual director will call all the members of the team together and have practice games, carefully choosing the gift for that game.  All the while, I continue to use my gift in my daily life.  But,then on Sunday morning or evening (or perhaps some other day), it is the game, worship.  God is there.  The God who gave all the gifts, he comes to watch his children demonstrate their use of the gift in worship.  This brings glory to him.  


What if we all bring our own ball into this event and focus on it?  What if we focus on God and sing out, “My, my, my” (like the bunch of sea gulls in Finding Nemo)?  Shouldn’t for that time, we give ourselves fully to be part of the team and for that time shouldn’t we sing, “Our?”


I get so frustrated with the argument that God is personal and if we only sing, “We, us and our” in worship people will not take responsibility for their own faith.  Rubbish.  Join the team, play the game, on game day worship our God and then take your gift home and  enjoy.