But we survived.

Today the City Council lifted the boil water notice.

Perhaps it's time to blog again.

Lyrics:
Bernard Fanning - Wish You Well
New Radicals - Get What You Give

Facebook page:
Student Volunteer base for Earthquake Clean up

3 News report:
Students give up break to help quake victims

I turn on the radio tonight to hear the word "miracle" being discussed in terms of what the quake didn't do. That's not something you hear every day. Or live through, I guess.

My house seems perfectly fine so far. Hopefully the next thing will just be cleanup at work. And sleep.

Updated Addington Space with quake news and forum.

Stuff news article

Scoop news article

Twitter #nzeq hashtag

Peace to everyone tonight.

New year, new decade, new blog name and look. Let's try starting this thing again.

Simon Talbot from Kraft Foods said: "The name Vegemite iSnack2.0 was chosen based on its personal call to action, relevance to snacking and clear identification of a new and different Vegemite to the original. We believe these three components completely encapsulate the new brand."

The call to iSnack action
Resounds throughout the land
Our glorious three components
Encapsulate the brand

On darkest breakfast tables
Dank dusty Vegemite
Made snacking near-irrelevant
Until we joined the fight

To feed the millions craving
Difference and novelty
We prayed to Kraft for a miracle
And lo! Processed CREAM CHEESE!

No mortal mind conceived this snack
'Twere born in circuit's glow!
In awe we serve to you on crackers
iSnack Two - Point - Ohhhh!

(iSnack 2.0 will now be known as CheesyBite. It's cheesy... and it bites! Kraft Foods would like to remind you that it is no longer directly related to the Philip Morris tobacco empire, since a whole couple of years ago, and would all you people please just shut up about that.)

"But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince.

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"Then it has done you no good at all!"

"It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields."

-- The Little Prince

(I know I posted this a while ago, and I can't find where.)

My copy of Regina Dawn Akers' The Holy Spirit's Interpretation of the New Testament has arrived, and I am starting to read it, beginning with the commentary for Mark, the most direct section.

It is a challenging read. I am getting all sorts of emotional mixed messages: I like it, and I'm disturbed by it, and I'm not sure if I believe it, or not. It's definitely in the A Course In Miracles vein, but ACIM was much clearer to me. This one... bugs me.

And yet. Looking at Regina's Yahoo Group, I see this:

Last summer, I had a dream. I was standing and looking at a wheat field that stretched as far as the eyes could see. As I looked on the wheat field I heard a thought, "The cover of the book is to be this color." A few weeks later, I had the same dream again.

I am not an artist, so I called Phil Frisk, who is. I asked him if he would design a wheat-colored cover for NTI. He agreed. We didn't talk about it again and a couple of months passed, then I had another dream. In this dream I was talking to a young man who seemed to have some authority over the cover of the book. I was telling him that the logo for the Foundation for the Holy Spirit needed to be on the cover. He disagreed. I told him that the copyright for NTI belonged to the foundation, so the logo must be on the cover. He said that wouldn't do. I continued to insist, and he continued to say no. Then, he reached in his files and pulled out a picture of a sheaf of wheat. He said that this was
the picture that was to be on the cover.

The symbol of the wheat and the harvest is hugely important to me. And then this blog entry:

I saw the seeds, which had been planted in every mind, as they began to grow. Happiness sprouted in bushes of light that grew from the minds of everyone. And soon, although we still walked and lived in this world, we were focused on our minds. We knew that’s where our happiness was. We knew that Love was in our minds, and we recognized that our minds were one. So, we walked within the world of form, but we did not pay attention to it. It was no longer of value to us. We valued only the Love, Happiness and Oneness of our minds.

It bugs me because this Sunday I had a similar mental image during the sermon; the parable of the Mustard Seed. All these people with seeds of light growing within them; all good acts forming trees which shelter the world. How much of our society has already been shaped and sheltered by quiet trees of righteousness that we don't even recognise, without which we'd be living in a harsh, dead desert?

It bugs me because I don't want to believe a false gospel. I don't want to believe something that's too simple, too easy, feels too right to be true.

This Jesus attracts me, even as he scares me, and I am desperately afraid that I will find out that he's only an illusion. What he says is too radical. 'God is within you' 'We are all God's children' 'I am only an elder brother'. 'The world is not really there' 'Everything you have done is already forgiven' 'You are one with God'.

How many Jesuses are there? What was the message he taught, really? When we strip away all the layers of human interpretation, what's the core of it? 'Say the Sinner's Prayer or you'll die and burn forever'? Or 'God loves you'?

This Jesus teaches like an Easterner. Is he even a Christian?

If this is real, there's something very interesting happening this decade. The Harvest that was promised to the Pentecostals might be beginning. And, for now, they're missing it. (Though perhaps the rain, to mix metaphors, is falling everywhere.)

If it's not real, the implications are too horrible to contemplate, and I've not yet entirely freed myself of that fear.

A voice inside me says 'fear is not the Way'. But...

The work of the kingdom of God must stand under two laws. First, you dare never again be angry at anyone, for the kingdom of God is love for all men. Therefore, you may not belittle anyone, even the least. Indeed, you are a miserable fool if you vex or annoy one of these little ones, demean him, or treat him as nothing. Thus, we must always look with God’s evaluation upon what I like to call “the pennies of God’s capital investment.� They belong to God, of course, although the value lies in the persons themselves. As man, you are of value to God; yet, your value is not a hair greater than that of some little guy of no status, e.g., a day laborer. We always must bear in mind the worth God attributes to a small, low-ranked, despised human being; such people we must guard and protect.

The second law is that we remain slaves. Slaves we want to be; lords we want never to become. We would be slaves under God’s hand—yet, that I not be misunderstood: slaves of men we will never be!...If I serve God, then God will stand by me and men must give way to me. I shall not yield as much as a fingernail to any man. And if empires and kingdoms of men multiply until the very heavens and earth itself fall, yet shall I stand like a rock in the sea. I hold fast to God, I am his slave; and all must break itself to pieces upon me, because I serve God.

We should be priests, i.e., we who have become firm in grace should stand firm for others, praying for them and the world so that the whole might be filled with the glory and power and grace of God. If we are steadfast in this priestly sense, then we bear a kingly power. We can cooperate in overcoming the dark powers of this world...You are not to be priests for yourselves but for the world in which you live.
That world should move your heart; and if you see something of its misery and death, then you should protest against it, saying, “That cannot be; indeed, it must cease, because Jesus lives.�