Meditating with Rumi

It was an Iraqi man who introduced me to the beauty of Rumi.

Today’s post from Spirituality and Practice also celebrates the spirit of this wise medieval poet and mystic”

Search the Darkness
Sit with your friends; don’t go back to sleep.
Don’t sink like a fish to the bottom of the sea.

Surge like an ocean,
don’t scatter yourself like a storm.

Life’s waters flow from darkness.
Search the darkness, don’t run from it.

Night travelers are full of light,
and you are, too; don’t leave this companionship.

Be a wakeful candle in a golden dish,
don’t slip in the dirt like quicksilver.

The moon appears for night travelers,
be watchful when the moon is full.

from Love Is a Stranger: Selected Lyric Poetry of Jelaluddin Rumi by Kabir Helminski

Gerry Harvey shares the love online – Eureka Street

“If you can’t beat them join them!” it seems.

One of Australia’s best known shopkeepers is well known for his ability to make a buck.
His and similar companies recently beat a hasty retreat from public reaction to their lobbying for exemptions in order to compete with on-line shopping.

Only one person can say whether love is the motivator for him popping up on-line, but this piece reminds us of the human side of economics – there is more than one bottom line.

Enjoy!

Gerry Harvey shares the love online – Eureka Street.

On discombobulating…

Scrabble, Word Games
Image by windygig via Flickr

Towards the close of this morning’s harangue, I experienced a disconnect with what I was saying and ended up saying the opposite. My carefully listening audience rippled with assorted “eh?s” and “what?”s?

I paused and said “Hang on – I’m all discombobulated. Let’s try that again…”

Afterwards.. you guessed it… all anyone wanted to discuss was the word “discombobulate.” With the overload of teachers and academics in my congregation, this was the focus.

So here’s proof – right from http://dictionary.reference.com/

dis·com·bob·u·late

http://sp.dictionary.com/dictstatic/d/g/speaker.swf [dis-kuhm-bob-yuh-leyt]

See also http://dictionary.merriam-webster.com

and http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/discombobulate

(these have some pedigree!)

So who says I make up words, even when discombobulated?

Playing with light…

Once upon a time, I saw the world only in terms of black and white...

… things got a bit complicated and I began to see shades of grey…

…now all is a chaos of technicolor!
Dwelling on tomorrow’s text from Ephesians 5:8-14: “Live as children of light.”

Fooling Around

Not much doing here. My wife fell for the “spider in the newspaper” trick and I was in the office alone for most of the morning. The World Championship Motor-Cross scheduled for Kings Park in 2013 will set some hares running. Otherwise, it’s all a bit underwhelming so far. Still, April 1 is yet to dawn on a good half of the world, so there’s hope yet.

[Edit: The “spider in the newspaper” trick has nothing to do with it following that I was  alone in the office for the morning!]

Kids learning violence – Eureka Street

Here’s a movie on the must see list for all who agonise over the culture of bullying and the immediate question of intervention in Libya. This review of Hævnen (In a better world) (Danish – English subtitles) gives some background: Kids learning violence – Eureka Street.

Recent viral video clips of schoolyard bullying remind me of my eight-year-old bespectacled self quoting Gandhi as the local bully shaped up for his fun. I also remember well how, some two years later, I momentarily snapped out of my pacific stance and the bully very quickly found himself bleeding and stunned on the asphalt. I was never bothered again, and I sometimes like to think that was my true “turning the other cheek” moment – asserting my equal worth with those who believed physical might was right. On the other hand, I still think I let some standard down and I feel ambivalence about this boyhood episode.

Bottom line – managing one’s response to violence is not simple.  Whether it’s working out how to respond to the murderous Quadaffi’s of this world (but why not other state sanctioned bullies like Mugabe?) or the more domestic kind, we who preach and practice non-violence somehow have to steer through this ambiguity if we are to retain our sanity.

Pressing another challenge

Hyde Park, Perth, Western Australia.
Image via Wikipedia

If you want to try out a promising exercise project, click on the link. I recently remarked that regularly completing “postaday”, challenging as it is, is easier than trying to maintain an exercise routine. Well, seems like someone overheard, ‘cos the WordPress mob want us to run 5km on April 12th. Seems like all their tech-heads are instigating the challenge and inviting the blogging community to join in. Seeing as I’ve been procrastinating about using a recently acquired tome called Perth’s Best Bush, Coast & City Walks, their challenge has created a minor stirring within. On the dignified side of 60, I decline to run the 5km, but I will walk it and even deign to begin a regular series of routes – easy around here with undulating and flat areas. MapMyWalk has enough geeky features to keep things interesting, so I’ll fossick around in my desk drawer, extract the pedometer, and start giving it a shot. After all, temperature is down to a pleasant range of 32-34 º C these days.


Tackling Australia’s “Illegal Immigrant” mythology

One gets tired of battling the sound bites, but for the sake of the latest casualty, a 19 year old Afghan kid who could not stand or understand his detention any longer, I offer the following:
Can you guess which is Australia’s graph line without looking at the legend?

We are not being inundated. We are not under siege. Little has changed over the decade. And they are not illegals – they are asylum seekers and have the right under international conventions to have their claims tested and processed under humane and compassionate conditions.

Still not convinced?

Try http://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/current/myths.html

Or http://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/current/myths.html

Or http://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/docs/refugeeweek/2009/RW_Common_myths.pdf

Or http://www.phaa.net.au/documents/int_health_asylum_seekers_2.pdf

I select as references these “middle of the road” organisations that are not regarded as politically aligned, with the faint hope that some readers who are convinced otherwise may at least read and consider – at least for the sake of a 19 year old Afghan whose life tragically ended in the land to which he came to find peace.

Demonising the Greens – Eureka Street

Demonising the Greens – Eureka Street.

This thoughtful article reflects some of the healthy tensions in my own church community comprising robust and articulate adherents across the whole range of the political spectrum. Having just entered a solar-energy package that benefits both our local church and its adherents through our environmental policy (and the pragmatic demands of fiscal realities), I guess we lean more to green. But the fact that the politically more conservative among us can support green decisions that make good sense to them (and vice versa) demonstrates that there are community contexts where media promoted political divides are continually breached. Would that this was reflected in parliament and that sound bi-partisan policy could be debated and enacted on a range of issues that are now polarised and entrenched along party lines.

Street party or PeaceChurch – why not both?

Both happen once in a blue moon. Must be a blue moon tonight ‘cos they clash. Our street Christmas party is late because this is the first Sunday we’re all here at the same time – yep, since Christmas 2010! PeaceChurch happens when we have something significant to process and that was scheduled for tonight as well. We want to to take the Reconciliation Action Plan a little further now that the Notice of Intention has been lodged with Reconciliation Australia. Sounds like a lot of rigmarole, but it means our efforts to engage in the indigenous reconciliation process are gaining some traction – even if it only means integrating celebration of significant events into the church program and advancing local education and communication opportunities. The two clashing events may, in the end, have a lot to do with each other (and we can attend both events tonight as the times are staggered).