mountain masala

we have no words for your grief

we can't speak into your grief
and don't presume to relieve it
all we can offer are prayers
in the name of one who was lost
and now is also lost for words

may God be with you
where you are right now
and wherever you may find yourself

may God be with you
in the warm tears
and in cold comfort

may God be with you
in this dimming twilight
and into the long night

may God be with you
in the strong embrace
and through the long loneliness

may God be with you
in whispered comfort
and awkward silence

may God be with you
in this impossible loss
and the eternal why?
may God be with us

living and dying and
ending and beginning
there seems no end to it all
and all keeps beginning
despite it all
so at the end of all
we hold to that uncertain why
that inevitable ending
that brings us face to face

may God be with you

my iphone apps

replacement iphone arrived today and seems to be working fine. thanks for the app recommendations. i thought I'd respond with what seems good so far. some free, all cheap!

Air Mouse - remote for multiple applications. amazing.

Shapewriter - drag to type. i like it so far

DocumentsToGo - for opening MS Office files

Evernote - grabbing and synching info - still deciding if this is worth it since there's a sub fee if you use it too much...

Fieldrunners - curse you whoever suggested this!

Bloom - Brian eno's ambient music maker

Ocarina - hah! we have a real one so I can already play "Oh Susanna" from memory - scary but true!

Digidrummer - when you have a real drummer in the house, this makes for a fun car trip... sort of..

Convertbot - great clever and nice-looking unit conversion app

Qantas 2 - checking my flights!

australians and technology use

the australian communication and media authority (acma) has a number of research papers published here, including a report about young people's use of social media.

worship resources section added

one of my bits of writing this week is some worship stuff for the upper room, so to help me find stuff i've added a worship resources section in the column to the right. thanks and apologies to all those whose ideas i've ripped off over the years, most notably cheryl, roddy, the iona community, darren, etc, etc....

now off to write day and night for stephen....

some news....

it's finally public...

our new Missiology Director/Lecturer

curating is allowing people to make stories

what brian eno says about curating...

Here's a group of cultural objects.
I claim that they are related in some way
That is what the history of curating is.
The job of the curator is to say
"I think this story is interesting"
and to weave that story through all of this.

I find these words compelling and completely unlike what systematic theologians do. thank you stanley h for shifting my brain all those years ago.

reflecting on a wonderful and too brief time with mark pierson last week.

tomato beef

about time for a recipe post. i cooked this the other night - recipe from martin yan's 'chinatown cooking - 200 recipes from 11 chinatowns across the world. i recommend it'.

thinly slice beef and marinate in 1 tbspn cornflour, 1tbspn oyster sauce, 1 tbspn soy sauce, 2 tspns whisky (I used bourbon...), 1 tspn minced garlic.

prepare the sauce by mixing 1/4 cup tomato sauce, 1 1/2 tspns chinese rice wine or dry sherry, 1 tspn soy sauce, 1/2 tspn worcestershire sauce, 1 tspn sugar.

stir fry beef in oil and remove from wok. stir fry your veg of choice (he uses onion, celery, green capsiucm, button mushrooms.

add sauce and 1-2 tomatoes cut into wedges. add beef and bring to boil.

simple. very tasty.  i love tomato in asian dishes.

vale cru

spent this afternoon at a wine tasting afternoon hosted by small wineries in mclarenvale. we're on the samuels gorge mailing list so we got an invite. the event was at the victory hotel, sellicks beach overlooking the ocean. stunning view. we heard they were planning for 40 people and a couple of hundred turned up.

so it was rather packed in, but a lovely warm afternoon and dozens of wines to taste, we took some cheese, pate and strawberries, assuming there'd be somewhere to sit. we ended up perched on the stone wall behind the serving benches, giving strawberries to winemakers.

the event was focusing on the soils in which the wines are grown, so each grower had a sample on their table. we couldn't hear the brief winemakers 'soil chat'. most of the winemakers were serving. had there been fewer people it would have been a great chance to chat. as it was, i was told by one wine maker that the iron stone in his vineyard 'gave the wine really rich flavours....'. really...?

creative worship tour

thanks to mark pierson i'm trying out joining creative worship tour, an online social network worship website. its partly an experiment in participating in this kind of online community, but also i'm passionate about this stuff.

international day of peace

we had planned to run prayer stations in the city tomorrow, coming out of our time with mark pierson, but we've had a very small group available for this part of the week, and frankly, not enough time to put together something good. so the fact that it might rain helped us decide not to go ahead.

we outlined four themes:
STATION ONE: PEACE IS A GIFT… CELEBRATE
STATION TWO: PEACE IS A LAMENT… GRIEVE
STATION THREE: PEACE IS A MYSTERY… HOPE
STATION FOUR: PEACE IS AN ACT… CHOOSE

so for what it''s worth, this is what I'd written for the 'prayer tree' that we were going to create using the tree out the front of pilgrim church.

Peace 

throughout human history
peace remains a mystery
always hoped for
yet never arriving
evasive and elusive
attractive and inspiring
we can’t grasp it
but we can choose it
 
though peace seems unlikely
we hope in its coming
we trust in its blessing
we dwell in its promise
 
so we have the strength
to offer trust
in the face of fear
we have the daring
to live simply
in the face of greed
we have the audacity
to live honestly
in the face of deceit
we have the courage
to live gently
in the face of violence
 
Write your own dream, hope or prayer for peace and hang it on the tree.
Read some other people’s dreams and hopes.
Pause for a moment. Let this hope flow inward and outward.
 
Take an olive branch as a gift. 
The gift of peace to you and our world.
You are invited to give it to another person, one with whom you seek peace, as a gift to them and a sign of reconciliation.
 
Peace be with you.