mountain masala

Young people leading themselves

One of our daughters is getting quite involved with The Oaktree Foundation, a social change movement run by young people, with almost no paid staff. Accordsing to their website,

"The Oaktree Foundation is Australia’s first and largest youth-run development agency. We’re another garage-startup. We began in 2003 with 30 people, working in living rooms and public halls. Now we’ve grown to become an established NGO, comprising of 300 volunteer staff and seven fully operational state offices."

Our daughter has been on the "Make Poverty History" national road trip to Canberra, attended by 1000 young people, is volunteering one day a week in the SA office (she had to apply and be interviewed for this), was making a promo video for them last night, and is about to go to Cambodia with them for 3 1/3 weeks to check out their development projects.

I'm intrigued by how empowered these young adults both feel and are. No-one in the organisation is over 26 years of age. For a long time I've felt that young adults will eventually leave any organisation that they are not running. I know so many Christian young adults who are more interested in changing the world than in joining the church. Church is not a 'cause' in and of itself, and most church youth or young adult groups have social transformation as a minor aspect of what they do, if at all.

Seven Sites, Seven Words

I missed Geoff Boyce's "Stations of the Cross" based on the sufferings of indigenous Australians at Pilgrim UC during Holy Week. Apparently it was pretty significant. If you want to check out the resources, they're here.

Miniature Earth

This animation used to be for sale. Now its on Youtube. Excellent.

Freedom of Religion in Australia

I'm in Sydney for a few days getting oriented to working for the Assembly and meeting with the Assembly staff team with whom I will relate for two years.  Really great to discover more about what our church is doing nationally. I remember having the same feeling at Assembly Standing Committee meetings and of course at our triennial Assemblys.

I'm going mention a few things in the next few days, but the first (thanks Elenie) is that the Australian Human Rights Commission has just released a report called "Freedom of Religion and Belief in 21st Century Australia". The report is co-authored by Professor Gary Bouma, Professor Desmond Cahill, Dr Hass Dellal, and Athalia Zwartz.

Gary Bouma of course is Professor Emeritus of Sociology from Monash University, with a research specialisation in religion in Australia. He's the author of Australian Soul from Cambridge University Press.

I'm looking forward to reading this and working its findings into my writing about the kind of landscape in which Christian education takes place.

The main project page is here. There are a number of supplementary papers, some available now and some forthcoming.

conspire

conspire is a quarterly magazine from the simple way, the initiative of shane claibourne and co. we've given it to the twins as a Christmas gift, and the first copy arrived today. they were inspired and challenged by shane at NCYC 2009, and we've regularly invested in their Christian education in appropriate ways like this.

this issue's theme is "walls and borders: setting the captives free". it has articloes about Palestine today, US-Mexican 'border' challenges, immigration, Matthew 25, Iraq, Matthew 18, several articles about the prison system, book reviews (including a book co-authored by Ched Myers on restorative justice, news from 'conspiring communities' across the US, art and some poetry. US$50 for two subscriptions (ie. keep one, give one, or give two!)

wonderful 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.