Saw a great film called Defiance tonight about some Jews in Belarus in WWII who bunkered down in the forests to build a strong community which (mostly) survived against all odds, an awesome watch.

Life is good but very busy, this blog is one of many casualties of late. Need to get back on track with so many things!

Peace all,
Maybe some meatier posts coming soon…

Apotheosis of War

I’ve been reading more and more from people like Tony Campolo, Rob Bell and Shane Claiborne, all of whom are pacifists, and a common theme has been emerging… the nature of Empire. Empire is what happens when pride goes unchecked and greed is allowed to reign over society, where one ruler sits unchallenged at the top of the tree, traditionally handing down orders one level at a time with penalties at each level if a ‘rung in the ladder’ doesn’t fulfill his purpose. At its core it is driven by greed and fear.

One very clear marker for Empire, in the sense of the word that is represented by Egypt and Babylon in the Bible, is when a society starts to dedicate huge portions of its wealth to the maintenance and preservation of what it has already accrued… when it starts building expensive weapons and armies to protect and serve its great nation, for example. The total cost of the ‘war on terror’ has been about a trillion dollars so far, with an equal amount of money being spent back on shore on new security and defense measures as a result of the 9/11 bombings. Much of the defensive work has been in bolstering airline security, which brings up the somehow amusing and all-too-likely possibility that next time someone plans a U.S attack, maybe… just maybe… they won’t do it in the same way?

The problem of Empire is unfortunately also clearly evident in the Church. I’ve seen many large Churches reach a critical point after a time of explosive growth where they feel the need to commit to a massive upgrade… a huge, fancy new building with plasma TVs in the foyer. Perhaps a cafe near the entrance and a large bookstore… all things that make a Church feel modern, successful and comfortable. And almost always it is done with mostly borrowed money (if these things are done frugally with actual cash I have no problem with them of course). This soon brings new financial responsibility to the Church, and tithing gets pushed harder and harder from the pulpit. New staff are required to maintain the new facility. Someone to man the cafe. Someone to run the book store. Now the megachurch needs a hundred thousand dollars a month to make budget. Priorities quickly change.

Giving to the poor, if it was ever a priority, gets shuffled back as the Church is forced to primarily look after itself and cover its expenses, leading to the appalling 4% figure we currently give from our tithes to the poor and needy. Somehow the fact that 90% of our tithe was to go to this cause under Old Testament teaching seems forgotten.

I personally feel stuck in this cycle right now. Through my own foolishness and greed, I overspent in a way that has kept me down for a couple of years so far, and it’s looking to take a lot longer to work my way out of it. Once debt has a hold over your finances, it’s hard to be a generous giver, it’s hard to do things with friends, and all your money goes into the preservation of what you already have. I live in a house I can’t afford, I drive a car I can’t afford and each night I sit down with my wife and watch TV on an expensive LCD TV I can’t afford, and there’s no way for me to backtrack and come out on top. The things I spent big money on are now worth little.

I’ve learned a lot from these mistakes, but despite my frustrations, my eyes are opened to just how much our society makes us slaves to money. The current financial crisis only makes this clearer.

I found this great piece of art from 1871, Vereschagin’s Apotheosis of War (top), which perfectly captures the cost of Empire. Note the shape of the mound and view it in full size to see the background detail. We may not live in a literal empire, but in a spiritual and Biblical sense we are not only in one, but working for one.

The last 6 months have been a defining time for me and as I’ve reflected on the last few years and realized just how little of what I set out to achieve (except my marriage) has come to pass, I’ve been reminded how quickly life can fly by if you don’t grab it by the balls while it’s not looking.

I’ve started taking important things like my faith and my relationships more seriously and as a result everything else is beginning to bloom. The scripture “seek first the Kingdom of Heaven all these things will be added unto you” comes to mind.

I’m a billimetre away from a full band right now and the two members who’ve committed to Ice Pictures already (Dan Gray and Nathaniel Lagwa, on Guitar and Bass respectively) are top quality musos and equal quality guys. Very stoked. Just looking for a drummer now.

My work situation is solid and supports us well, albeit a little straight and high-strung for my liking. Things in general are in fact going swimmingly, so I’d like to share three things I’ve learned in the last year:

* Your schedule opens up amazingly when your Xbox stops working. It’s almost worth it, but not quite…
* Friends are awesome, but nothing beats the friend you get to sleep with. Yay for marriage! Treat your woman right, notice the little things, think less of yourself… etc.
* A little Peggle makes every day better.

Love you all!

The more I look at scripture, the more the modern interpretation of God’s view on success seems like nonsense. The quickest and simplest metaphor I can think of to demonstrate where I’m headed is God’s provision of manna in the desert, where he gave them only what they needed for each day and forbade them from stockpiling it for even one day beyond that. This is fast becoming my philosophy on how to live life and what to ‘expect’ from God. I’m starting to be believe he’s simply the God of Enough, as much as early morning TV shows would like us to believe otherwise.

Sure, there are other examples in the Old Testament where God used the wealth of Israel to fulfill his overall purpose of building the temple and pointing to Christ, but when Christ himself comes along it all seems to change. What about “sell everything you have and follow me” (Luke 18:22)? What about “Take nothing for the journey – no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra tunic” (Luke 9:2-4)? Sure, Christ was addressing specific people at the time and maybe not us universally, but His general message of selfless giving resounds throughout scripture.

Shane Claiborne summarizes it nicely when he says ‘live simply, so that others can simply live’. For as long as there are people around us who have less than enough, for us to have a surplus and hold on to it may be the epitomy of missing the point of the Gospel.

So what do we do with this information? I’m not sure. Of course I don’t think it’s everyone’s path to sell everything they own and do Christian ministry, as the world needs bakers and architects and IT guys to keep on rolling, and I’m a big fan of Christians being in every sphere of society and having a positive influence in any case. But how much time do we spend with the poor? Do we care enough to love them and live with them, or do we simply give the odd offering or sponsor a child and let that be enough?

God’s only major concern when separating the sheep from the goats in Matthew 25 was how we cared for the poor and needy. It seems to be a pretty big deal for Him. Maybe it should be a bit more of a priority for us, too…

Again, all credit goes to the author of the source material, Mike Patton of Reclaiming the Mind.

Enjoy!

Click Here for PDF or Right-Click to Save:

N00b Theology Part 3 – Prophecy and Supernatural Signs

Again, all credit goes to the author of the source material, Mike Patton of Reclaiming the Mind.

Enjoy!

Click Here for PDF or Right-Click to Save:

N00b Theology Part 2 – The Church and Sources Of Theology

But there’s a catch. Working through it all is a hell of a job, as even though the videos only average out at 10-12 mins each, there are 258 of them, offering over 2000 hours of teaching. I’ve been focussing on those marked as ‘essential’ (about half), and I’ve spent at least 500 hours on there already, plus the further personal study that it’s prompted.

It’s with this in mind that I’m writing summary versions of each topic, which I originally started out for my own benefit and reference, but then I figured I might as well put in a bit of extra work and share it around. Part 1 is attached, with more to come.

All credit goes to the author of the source material, Mike Patton (yep, that really is his name) of Reclaiming the Mind.

Enjoy!

Click Here for PDF or Right-Click to Save:

N00b Theology Part 1 – Intro and Fundamentals

I bought a 20′ aluminium iMac last feb from the refurb store for 1400 AUD bucks. Pretty stoked. I picked it up for my home studio so I could have a silent machine with two firewire ports for all my recording gear and so my wife had something to use while I was at work.

The first six months were peachy. The thing was sexy, fast, dead silent, and doing everything I bought it for. Then came the fan saga. For no explicable reason, in its eighth month of life, the fans started spooling up to full speed whenever they felt like it, regardless of CPU load or internal temps. This of course meant that everything I recorded anywhere near it had the noise bleed into it, rendering it useless. I’m a software support guy, so I went through all the usual troubleshooting, looking for rogue processes and whatever else I could think of, reinstalling suspect apps, then after reaching my wit’s end backing up all my stuff and reinstalling Mac OS completely. No change. Of course…

After this came a long series of very extended repair attempts, during which my local authorized Apple repairer had it on the bench for 3-4 days each time before it would even play up – that’s before they could even start to work out what the problem was. Bugger of a time. Long story short, between two logic board swaps, a fan assembly swap and a full internal clean, it was out of action for two months. I wrote a firm but fair complaint to Apple explaining that after paying the usual premium for the appleness of it, I expected it to either work reliably or be fixed promptly in the event of an issue like this.

After many an arduous phone call over the course of two or three weeks, they conceded that the fix that was being attempted at that time would be the final attempt, and that they would either offer me a gift of good will if the repair was successful, or replace it completely if the issue resurfaced again. I got it home a couple of days later and everything seemed fine for a few days. I called them and asked them what they could offer me for my valuable wasted time (haha). They eventually agreed to give me a copy of the Mac Box Set, which includes licenses for iWork 09, iLife 09 and Leopard. That’s no cheap gift, so I was quite satisfied. A couple of days later, the fan issue resurfaced again. Suffice to say that I not only have a brand new shiny iMac sitting in front of me right now (in place of the refurb I bought, no less) but I got to keep the Mac box set as well. Yep, I came out about 700 bucks on top, and with a brand new machine with a fresh warranty and far better specs!

w00tage indeed

I’ll start with a humbling admission… Peggle is awesome! I’d never played it until 2 weeks ago and it always looked terrible to me, but I gave it a shot on XBLA and DS and I’m hooked. How a game that is at least 80% luck can be so satisfying I have no idea, though the skill element is becoming more apparent now. Freakin sweet – it’s like vertical pool on candy mountain!

• Portishead: Third - A little darker than their earlier work, and all the better for it. My personal highlight for the year.
• TV On The Radio: Dear Science – My first experience with TVOTR, it’s an undeniably well-crafted, patient, intelligent and fun album with a very unique sound. Loving it. 
• Radiohead: In Rainbows from the Basement – A live version of In Rainbows with two extra tracks. An absolutely brilliant watch and an equally brilliant listen.
• Bon Iver: For Emma, Forever Ago – This album has completely blown me away. So simple, so beautiful… It takes a lot to get me interested in solo acoustic work like this, but it’s just so perfect I can’t not love it.

I wish I’d heard more this year, but with my limited budget, these are the only albums I’ve been able to hear that I’d class asessential listening. I’ve caught up on some older stuff I’d never heard, though, and here are a couple:

• The Dillinger Escape Plan: Ire Works – If I had a Top 10 list of all-time favourite albums, this would definitely make the list. It’s part metal, part progressive and all awesome. Everything I love in an album is here; it’s intelligent, thoughtful, ferocious, natural and very progressive, and I think I’ve finally found a band to fill the great void left by Tool!
• Sigur Ros: Takk – Sigur Ros is one of those bands I’ve heard whisperings of for a long time but never actually checked out until recently. Takk is one of the most strikingly beautiful pieces of music I’ve ever heard, and I’m calling it a single piece because that’s what it is – although some songs stand on their own as individual works of mastery, it’s only when you hear it as a whole that the brilliance of Takk is heard. The majesty of it is undeniable, and with Bon Iver’s debut reaching my ears in the same calendar year, I’ve got as rich a dose of musical beauty as one could ever hope for.