Analysis Paralysis

Wednesday already! I have just launched a harangue for this week’s church newsletter about the necessary evils of statistics and surveys. We are beginning a Church Life Review by filling out National Church Life Survey forms as a congregation together during the service. (This will be good practice for Census night on Tuesday). Then we will have our AGM where, no doubt, we will be focused on more reviews and stats. Then I jump in the car and head to a retreat in the hills where a review with another organisation will be taking place through the afternoon and evening!

These days a review seems to be around every corner! When do we just hop in the bi-plane, leave the tarmac and go barn-storming! How to avoid the clutches of analysis paralysis.

But in my more reflective moments I can see the purpose of such reviews. It is simply because some risky ventures have been taking place that regular re-assessment is necessary. Like walking through a desert and needing to pause frequently to take a GPS reading to ensure we are still heading in the direction we earlier discerned. Such analysis is not paralysis – its purpose is to make sure we get to where we said we want to get!

In which case I am happy to embrace what begins this Sunday!

This Blog is One Year Old!!

This experiment is now up for its annual performance review.

1. The blog has provoked mild interest amongst acquaintances and some unknown “anonymi”
2. It’s been one place for me to think out loud in a public arena
3. I pulled one post when it became too politically sensitive
4. It has generated a little over 10 hits a week on average. More frequent posts are necessary to maintain interest.
5. I need to learn how to insert some of the widgets and cross links into the sidebars.
6. Realistically, the time needed to maintain the blog needs to be measured against my other priorities.

Recommendation:

1. Set a timeframe to acquire some html skills in order to build up the sidebars
2. Aim to update at least twice a week – say Wednesdays and Sundays.
3. Review after 6 months

Jindabyne the movie

Take a short story from the USA and convert it to Aussie cinema and something like Jindabyne appears. Raymond Carver’s So Much Water So Close To Home underwent some changes to become Ray Lawrence’s dramatic depiction of a community’s response to the thoughtless and apathetic actions of four fishing mates who discover a corpse in the isolated Snowy Mountain region. The men continue their fishing adventure and do not report their find until they return three days later.  What seemed a pragmatic solution at the time is now, in the cold light of day, shown up as an act of high grade callousness.
It puts strains on family relationships and turns the men into small town pariahs. The fact that the victim is a young aboriginal woman brings racial tension to the surface. For me, Jindabyne is something of a social commentary on a variety of levels. Apathy is a kind of default position that many of us revert to in daily life. It is a condition that dogs even our best re-creative moments, dulling our thinking. Or was it the surreal, beautiful yet ominous, natural environment of the high country that anaesthetized the senses? I have spent time in the high country myself, and experiences of foreboding are frequently palpable there. The strain on intimate relationships resulting from ethically questionable decisions that have come under public scrutiny is a study in itself. Mixed in is the conflict between passive aggressive resentment and the drive to inappropriate expressions of vicarious guilt assuagement. Throw in the element of racial insensitivity with its hint to the audience that the matter of aboriginal reconciliation will not go away, and we have powerful cinema that will leave you touched by sadness, despair and anger. Yet there are signs of hope also, a reaching out, the courage to make apologies knowing they may not be accepted, but making them anyway because they are necessary for healing to begin. There are tender moments here, flickers of light that deserve to be noticed in the darkness of it all. Some will find the film slow moving, I found it contemplative.

LibraryThing

What to do when you’re taking one week’s overdue leave and you can’t really go anywhere that doesn’t seem forced. With one week – you just get there, begin to unwind, then it’s time to come back.

Just a week of no commitments (relatively speaking) is a vacation in itself. I decided to catalogue my library – doesn’t sound much like a holiday, does it? I have been wanting to do this for years, however, and LibraryThing (see www.librarything.com) makes it so easy.

Just go to the site, enter the ISBN (or author and title – even part title) and, if it’s on Amazon or in one of 45 online library catalogues, it does the rest for you – even showing a picture of the front cover – great for us visual types. If none of these have the title you’re trying to enter, you can add it manually. You have the option of inserting your own reference tags and linking and dialoguing with other users. Write and compare reviews. See the stats of your own library.

I’ve catalogued almost 1000 books with about half as many to go. Would have done more except that I kept on stopping to browse books I’d forgotten I had. I invite you to step into my library at www.librarything.com/catalog/djryle

Well, well, well!

The challenge to the church was to raise $4000 to sink a well in the remote drought stricken hinterlands of Zimbabwe. Individuals and groups set about to devise their fund-raising schemes. Our resident artist devised a working model that would show week by week how far the bore had sunk towards the water table far beneath the surface. A week or two into the project, our treasurer phoned me,
“We have a problem – $4,200 has come in already.”
“Well, let’s go for a second well!”
“Agreed!”
So now we are going full bore to reach the target a second time.
Who knows? We may even end up saying,
“Well, well, well! Wot ‘ave we ‘ere? Three of ‘em!” Posted by Picasa

Eucalyptus



It’s the name of a book by Murray Bail that I’m reading at the moment. It’s also what the stand of tuarts around the church are saying after this morning’s loppings – “You clipped us!” (Sorry, can’t help it!). Tuarts are a very hardy species of eucalyptus, peculiar to this part of Australia. Bail’s book is the story of a widower who acquired a rural property and planted at least one of every known species of eucalyptus. He raised his daughter there, and, when of age, she attracted many suitors. By Dad’s decree, only the suitor who correctly named each species of tree (at least 700) on the property would win her hand.
Sounds like an ocker version of Rumpelstiltskin. I wouldn’t normally read books like this, but for the book club here. Should make for some interesting discussion. I’ve also learned it’s due to hit the silver screen before long, with Crowe and Kidman taking the starring roles. Funny how focus on something as ordinary and ubiquitous as a gum tree can change the way you perceive it! Posted by Picasa

Grand Opening of Universal WC

A little piece of doggerel to commemorate the opening of a universal WC at the Wembley Downs Church of Christ

Now its here! Now its done!
A toilet that all can access –
the halt and the lame, the gent and the dame
may “go” with all speedy success.

“Let’s have a grand opening!”
the Board Chairman declared,
“and let the Lotteries rep be invited.”
So to Open House the hordes repaired –
all anticipatory, ready and excited.

Now how does one open a new WC
with appropriate flair and not rush?
Does one cut a ribbon? Unveil a plaque?
Or press a button and flush?

The Good Book provided a verse or two
to inspire some imaginative work
“Drink from your own cisterns,”
was the advice it put forth –
but methinks the connection a quirk!

Speeches were made, and thanks were expressed
To Lotteries and donors alike,
No ribbon was cut, no button depressed –
Morning tea was served instead!

World Cup vs World Vision?

How many Aussies will be late for work tomorrow having stayed up in the still small hours to watch the Socceroo-Croatia contest?

And now this from http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/

World cup anti-poverty advert is banned The UK Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre has banned an advert by a Christian relief agency which contrasts the £49 million it has cost to sponsor the England World Cup football with the 60p a day it costs to support a child in a poor community.According to the BACC the problem is that the agency concerned, World Vision, has not yet got the required permission from the England team and the Football Association, who are both mentioned in the film – which features former Doctor Who film star Paul McGann doing a voiceover.The one-minute advert was filmed by a young boy called Masidi from Malawi. He makes a ball out of maize to kick around with his friends because it is the nearest thing to a proper football which he can get hold of as a member of an impoverished community. World Vision says it has now had to spend more money to get an alternative advert shown. Though the ostensible issue is the technical matter of referring to third parties, the development organization thinks that the image of the message may have had something to do with it too – though the BACC denies this.“In our eyes, the advert is in no way anti-World Cup or anti-football. It simply uses the common language of football to point out the difference between Western world affluence and developing world resourcefulness,” says Rudo Kwaramba, who is responsible for advocacy, communications and education at World Vision.The purpose of the advert is to promote child sponsorship programmes as a way of supporting children in developing countries. Other agencies, such as Christian Aid and Oxfam, prefer to channel resources to communities and organisations rather than singling out individuals or families.But they have also had their advertising problems. A Make Poverty History television advert they and other groups put together was banned last year because mentioning trade and debt was deemed ‘political’. Actor Paul McGann is not impressed by this latest bar on a campaign he was supporting: “Does one laugh or cry? An advert describing how 60p a day might help a child in a developing country is pulled in order to spare the image of corporate sponsorship in a couple of rich ones. You couldn’t make it up.”

World Cup Blues

Members of my congregation were somewhat exercised that Brazil appeared on yesterday’s list for intercessions under the Ecumenical Prayer Cycle. Within 14 hours, Australia’s Socceroos were due to play Brazil, the top contenders for the World Cup. How do you intercede for a nation with which one’s own is in contest, even only recreationally? We all know how deeply sporting competitions affect the passions in the psyche, possibly sublimating those used to maintain balance in ancient inter-tribal rivalry. So how do we pray for the opposition?

Honestly!  We first confessed our perplexity given the coming face-off. Then we offered thanksgiving for the vibrancy and joie de vivre that is Brazil’s gift to the world. We prayed for Brazil’s national leadership, particularly in striving for outcomes of justice and mercy for the poor and dispossessed of that nation. We prayed for the church of Brazil in all its expressions and with all its challenges.

The outcome of the match is now well-known. We lost 2-0. Brazil showed why it is Number One, but the newcomers, the Socceroos, revealed a stamina and determination that did us proud. And Aussies love a good party. Nothing could keep them away from participating in Brazil’s celebrations. Better than the riots and destruction sometimes expressed by supercharged fans.

So ends a somewhat narrowly self-focused reflection on the phenomenon of the World Cup as it touched us yesterday.  The phenomenon of the World Cup raises a whole lot of other issues for reflection, but more on that later.

A Christian Peacemaker reflects at Easter

“Christ teaches us to love our enemies, do good to those who harm us, pray for those who persecute us. He calls us to accept suffering before we inflict injury. He calls us to pick up the cross and to lay down the sword.
We will most certainly fail in this call. I did. And I’ll fail again. This does not change Christ’s teaching that violence itself is the tomb, violence is the dead end. Peace won through the barrel of a gun might be a victory but it is not peace. Our captors had guns and they ruled over us. Our rescuers had bigger guns and ruled over the captors. We were freed, but the rule of the gun stayed. The stone across the tomb of violence has not been rolled away.”

– Christian Peacemaker Teams member James Loney, in an Easter reflection published by the Toronto Star about his 118-day captivity by Iraqi militants and rescue by British special forces troops.

As cited in Sojomail, the weekly newsletter published by Sojourners. See www.sojo.net for more information on how to subscribe. The editor, Jim Wallis, is an alternative Christian voice in America while still identifying strongly with the evangelical scene. He recently visited Australia.