Have a listen to this song...words are below...It's called 1 & 3
One and three what happened to the two?
What about the lies there telling you?
The first is filled with opulence and luxury
The third is full of starvation and poverty
Think about the values of the new world order
A microcosm with commercials crossing borders, yeah
The first and third I'm growing tired of the
The first and third don't know how much longer I can
Take the stress, like chasing spirits in the dark
Three and one there's so much we've been through
Broken promises will have to do
There's so much in between the right and wrong
It's time we looked around at what's been going on
Think about the values of the new world order
A microcosm with commercials crossing borders, yeah
The first and third I'm growing tired of the
The first and third don't know how much longer I can
Take the stress, like chasing spirits in the dark
We're possessed, obsessed
In turn we're more distressed
We're doomed, consumed
We gotta get that money off our backs
Affluenza, a-fflu-enza!
Think about the values of the new world order
A microcosm with commercials crossing borders yeah, yea yeah
The first and third I'm growing tired of the
The first and third don't know how much longer I can
Take the stress, like chasing spirits in the dark
Like chasing spirits in the dark, yea yeah.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Stop the Traffic
There are 27 million enslaved men, women and children in the world.
Over 2.2 million children are sold into the sex trade every year.
There are more slaves today than at any other time in history.
In India children cost less than cattle.
Their traffickers pocketed $32 billion last year alone.
Sunday 22nd November is Abolitionist Sunday...
It is incredible how intricate and how well organised the trading of humans for illegal work is... Sadly, there is also so much corruption at the highest levels that allows it to occur. We are not is exempt here in Australia. In 2003 over 1000 women traded across our borders from South East Asia to be enslaved into brothels and forced to sell their bodies to provide for an industry that is gaining in popularity and demand. Slaves are forced to work against their will in cocoa fields, coffee fields, brothels, sweat shops and more so consumers get a cheaper product and the rich continue to get richer.
One of my favourite new poets, Gerard Kelly, wrote this poem and I thought it is so powerful and appropriate for Sunday 22nd November and every other day of the year. Let's do what we can to stop the traffic.
I am a person,
not a potato
to be picked and packaged
and sent to market
to be sliced and diced,
chopped up and ketchupped
on the other side of the world.
I am human
and I am not for sale
I am a living conscience,
not a cargo.
I travel passenger,
not freight.
I am not cattle,
not contraband,
not a catalogued commodity.
I'm not the bottom line
for those who trade in tragedy
and profit from perversity.
I am not a can
to be recycled.
I am human
and I am not for sale
I am a thinking individual,
not a rare exotic bird,
I am your sister,
not an inmate for your zoo.
I am not merchandise,
not meat,
not a meal ticket,
not manufactured,
begotten,
not created.
I am human
and I'm not for sale.
It's time to end this trade
in human tragedy,
to terminate this travesty
of a global economy.
Let the red lights
of your cities be put to better use
to stop the traffic.
Write it in your lights
across your seared conscience:
I am human
and I am not for sale.
Kelly, G. Spoken Worship, 2007.
Over 2.2 million children are sold into the sex trade every year.
There are more slaves today than at any other time in history.
In India children cost less than cattle.
Their traffickers pocketed $32 billion last year alone.
Sunday 22nd November is Abolitionist Sunday...
It is incredible how intricate and how well organised the trading of humans for illegal work is... Sadly, there is also so much corruption at the highest levels that allows it to occur. We are not is exempt here in Australia. In 2003 over 1000 women traded across our borders from South East Asia to be enslaved into brothels and forced to sell their bodies to provide for an industry that is gaining in popularity and demand. Slaves are forced to work against their will in cocoa fields, coffee fields, brothels, sweat shops and more so consumers get a cheaper product and the rich continue to get richer.
One of my favourite new poets, Gerard Kelly, wrote this poem and I thought it is so powerful and appropriate for Sunday 22nd November and every other day of the year. Let's do what we can to stop the traffic.
I am a person,
not a potato
to be picked and packaged
and sent to market
to be sliced and diced,
chopped up and ketchupped
on the other side of the world.
I am human
and I am not for sale
I am a living conscience,
not a cargo.
I travel passenger,
not freight.
I am not cattle,
not contraband,
not a catalogued commodity.
I'm not the bottom line
for those who trade in tragedy
and profit from perversity.
I am not a can
to be recycled.
I am human
and I am not for sale
I am a thinking individual,
not a rare exotic bird,
I am your sister,
not an inmate for your zoo.
I am not merchandise,
not meat,
not a meal ticket,
not manufactured,
begotten,
not created.
I am human
and I'm not for sale.
It's time to end this trade
in human tragedy,
to terminate this travesty
of a global economy.
Let the red lights
of your cities be put to better use
to stop the traffic.
Write it in your lights
across your seared conscience:
I am human
and I am not for sale.
Kelly, G. Spoken Worship, 2007.
Is there any 'real' left in reality?
What The?
We live in a real world that many of us want to escape from to enter into an unreal world where things appear real.
Take photoshop & magazines for example...the marriage of photoshop and the magazine has had a monumental impact on one's perception of what is real. The majority of images in our magazines today have been edited (removed) of their flaws or 'unattractive bits' so that the person appears to be more perfect than in reality. We live in a world unhappy with reality, so we create an unreal world that is perceived to better than what it is on offer. But...can we live up to this world? Can we live up to these high expectations? Are we supposed to? What stresses and strains, worries and warts are they actually creating? How are we supposed to deal with the disappointment and discouragement of not looking how our culture says we should...or not living the perfect life in the perfect house with the perfect family? How do we survive the ubiquitous false expectations of what it means to live life well by marketers and products.
1) One way is to certainly resist it and to refuse to be fooled by the falseness that is. This will certainly help.
2) A better way I suggest is to be formed by another story...to be shaped by an alternative narrative. I believe that if we were to hold up Jesus as our image and immerse ourselves into the story of God we would find a story that is much more compelling and meaningful; one that supplies lasting value and acceptance...not a fleeting moment of it.
3) A Third way may be to simply remember the picture you see above whenever you begin to devalue yourself because you feel you don't 'match up' to what others look like or the image you are told to you need to look like. You will notice that the editor has failed to remove a whole 'hand' from around the girls shoulders. What the?
Marketers and advertising sells us lies and false expectations. May we not be fooled. May we find our identity not in the marriage of Photoshop and Magazines but in the Image of Jesus and the Story of God. Perhaps the one thing that is real in our world is the hand of God upon our shoulder leading and celebrating life with us.
We live in a real world that many of us want to escape from to enter into an unreal world where things appear real.
Take photoshop & magazines for example...the marriage of photoshop and the magazine has had a monumental impact on one's perception of what is real. The majority of images in our magazines today have been edited (removed) of their flaws or 'unattractive bits' so that the person appears to be more perfect than in reality. We live in a world unhappy with reality, so we create an unreal world that is perceived to better than what it is on offer. But...can we live up to this world? Can we live up to these high expectations? Are we supposed to? What stresses and strains, worries and warts are they actually creating? How are we supposed to deal with the disappointment and discouragement of not looking how our culture says we should...or not living the perfect life in the perfect house with the perfect family? How do we survive the ubiquitous false expectations of what it means to live life well by marketers and products.
1) One way is to certainly resist it and to refuse to be fooled by the falseness that is. This will certainly help.
2) A better way I suggest is to be formed by another story...to be shaped by an alternative narrative. I believe that if we were to hold up Jesus as our image and immerse ourselves into the story of God we would find a story that is much more compelling and meaningful; one that supplies lasting value and acceptance...not a fleeting moment of it.
3) A Third way may be to simply remember the picture you see above whenever you begin to devalue yourself because you feel you don't 'match up' to what others look like or the image you are told to you need to look like. You will notice that the editor has failed to remove a whole 'hand' from around the girls shoulders. What the?
Marketers and advertising sells us lies and false expectations. May we not be fooled. May we find our identity not in the marriage of Photoshop and Magazines but in the Image of Jesus and the Story of God. Perhaps the one thing that is real in our world is the hand of God upon our shoulder leading and celebrating life with us.
An Alternative Narrative
This could be a worthwhile read...
I came across the link to this review of the book 'Telling God's Story' at MSA's Site which is linked below also.
MSA's site is well worth looking around...there is much interesting articles, media and reflections on living as followers of Jesus in turbulent times...plus much more!!
http://postyesterdaychurch.blogspot.com/2008/12/book-review-telling-gods-story.html
http://msainfo.org
I came across the link to this review of the book 'Telling God's Story' at MSA's Site which is linked below also.
MSA's site is well worth looking around...there is much interesting articles, media and reflections on living as followers of Jesus in turbulent times...plus much more!!
http://postyesterdaychurch.blogspot.com/2008/12/book-review-telling-gods-story.html
http://msainfo.org
Friday, November 20, 2009
Humanifesto
Humanifesto
I want to be grace guerilla,
no longer a chameleon of karma:
the time has come to stand out
from the crowd.
I want to give forgiveness a fighting chance
of freeing me,
to live in love
and live it out loud.
I want to drink deep of the foolishness of wisdom
instead of swallowing
the wisdom of fools,
to find a source
in the deeper mines of meaning.
I want to search out
the unsearchable,
to invoke in invisible
to choose the truths
the TV hypnotists aren't screening.
No camouflage,
no entourage,
no smoothly fitting in.
I want a faith that goes further than face value
and a beauty that goes deeper than my skin
I want to be untouched by my possessions
instead of being possessed by what I touch,
to test the taste
of having nothing to call mine,
to hold consumptions cravings back,
to be content with luck or lack,
to live as well on water as on wine.
I want to spend myself on those I think might need me,
not spend
all I think I need on myself.
I want my heart to be willing to make house calls.
Let those whose rope is at an end
Find in me a faithful friend.
Let me be known as one who rebuilds broken walls.
No camouflage,
no entourage
no smoothly fitting in.
I want a faith that goes further than face value
and a beauty that goes deeper than my skin
I want to be centred outside the circle,
to be chiselled from a different seam.
I want to be seduced by another story
and drawn into a deeper dream,
to be anchored in an undiscovered ocean,
to revolve around an unfamiliar sun,
to be boom box tuned to an alternate station,
a bullet fired from a different gun.
No camouflage,
no entourage,
no smoothly fitting in.
I want a faith that goes further than face value
and a beauty that goes deeper than my skin
I wanted to post this Poem for you.
It was written by Gerard Kelly in a book called 'Spoken Worship'.
It is meant to be read out loud...spoken in a way that brings both the speaker and all who listen into a fresh new experience of worship...
He encourages the public reading of these poems in every setting: Church services, home groups, personal times with God.
I hope you liked this one...and might seek to buy his book. I recommend it.
Kelly, G. Spoken Worship. Zondervan:Grand Rapids. (2007)
For your pleasure...this is the forward from Walter Brueggerman
'We have only the word, but the word will do. It will do because it is true that the poem shakes the empire, that the poem heals and transforms and rescues, the poem enters like a thief in the night and gives new life, fresh from the word and from nowhere else. There are many pressures to quiet the text, to slience this deposit of dangerous speech, to halt this outrageous practice of speaking alternative possibility. The poems, however, refuse such silence. They will sound. They sound through preachers who risk beyond prose. In the act of such risk, power is released, newness is evoked, God is Praised.
Walter Brueggerman, Finally Comes the Poet
I want to be grace guerilla,
no longer a chameleon of karma:
the time has come to stand out
from the crowd.
I want to give forgiveness a fighting chance
of freeing me,
to live in love
and live it out loud.
I want to drink deep of the foolishness of wisdom
instead of swallowing
the wisdom of fools,
to find a source
in the deeper mines of meaning.
I want to search out
the unsearchable,
to invoke in invisible
to choose the truths
the TV hypnotists aren't screening.
No camouflage,
no entourage,
no smoothly fitting in.
I want a faith that goes further than face value
and a beauty that goes deeper than my skin
I want to be untouched by my possessions
instead of being possessed by what I touch,
to test the taste
of having nothing to call mine,
to hold consumptions cravings back,
to be content with luck or lack,
to live as well on water as on wine.
I want to spend myself on those I think might need me,
not spend
all I think I need on myself.
I want my heart to be willing to make house calls.
Let those whose rope is at an end
Find in me a faithful friend.
Let me be known as one who rebuilds broken walls.
No camouflage,
no entourage
no smoothly fitting in.
I want a faith that goes further than face value
and a beauty that goes deeper than my skin
I want to be centred outside the circle,
to be chiselled from a different seam.
I want to be seduced by another story
and drawn into a deeper dream,
to be anchored in an undiscovered ocean,
to revolve around an unfamiliar sun,
to be boom box tuned to an alternate station,
a bullet fired from a different gun.
No camouflage,
no entourage,
no smoothly fitting in.
I want a faith that goes further than face value
and a beauty that goes deeper than my skin
I wanted to post this Poem for you.
It was written by Gerard Kelly in a book called 'Spoken Worship'.
It is meant to be read out loud...spoken in a way that brings both the speaker and all who listen into a fresh new experience of worship...
He encourages the public reading of these poems in every setting: Church services, home groups, personal times with God.
I hope you liked this one...and might seek to buy his book. I recommend it.
Kelly, G. Spoken Worship. Zondervan:Grand Rapids. (2007)
For your pleasure...this is the forward from Walter Brueggerman
'We have only the word, but the word will do. It will do because it is true that the poem shakes the empire, that the poem heals and transforms and rescues, the poem enters like a thief in the night and gives new life, fresh from the word and from nowhere else. There are many pressures to quiet the text, to slience this deposit of dangerous speech, to halt this outrageous practice of speaking alternative possibility. The poems, however, refuse such silence. They will sound. They sound through preachers who risk beyond prose. In the act of such risk, power is released, newness is evoked, God is Praised.
Walter Brueggerman, Finally Comes the Poet
So what does all this mean?
Our world is moving fast...very fast. How do we ever keep up? Are we even supposed too?
What are the implications of all this for the future of the Church in Australia...the future of the church in the West for that matter?
I think we need to take all this seriously and ask the question posed in the this video (thanks to those who produced it)...So whatt does it all mean? Perhaps it is necessary to begin to 'think tank' all this in our churches.
I was reading a book last night from Soong-Chan Rah called 'The Next Evangelicalism'. In this book he points out that global Christianity is shifting away from the West to the South and the East. He highlights that while some parts of Western Christianity are in decline others are experiencing transformation growth as a result of increasing globalization...Spiritual renewal is happening on corners and margins not always noticed by those in the centre.
Would we do well here in Australia to heed the words of Rah and escape our captivity to Western Cultural trappings such as Individualism, Hyper-Reality, Materialism & Consumerism also... and to embrace a more multi-ethnic evangelicalism and one that is content to live as well on water as on wine.
Rah, S.C. The Next Evangelicalism. IVP:Illinois (2009)
I first saw this video at a SABU Assembly in October.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Who do we work for?
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