I am an artist. Though more specifically a painter, just so I don't get lumped in with those people who use art as an excuse for stupidity.
I am a web-designer. Every now and then I pull out the laptop and write a few hundred lines of code.
I am a Christian. A Christ follower. Enough said.
Two weeks of holiday’s go by quick. And I’ve had so much to do and no time to do them. I’ve been wanting to work on my websites. I’ve started work on HCAE’s website. Its been a slow started but I’m finally getting somewhere.
I’ve been working a lot on getting the new 10th Wellington wordpress site up and running. I’ve also been endevoring to set up openSUSE after finding out that v11 had come out without much of a moments notice. It may have bit into that monthly bandwidth, but from the looks of things it is well worth it. It seems to be a tight system apart from lack of MP3 support and a few bits and pieces that need tidying, but I must say its the most compatible system with KDE4.0 thus far.
Played indoor cricket tonight as a ring in. I’m not a huge fan of the game. It seems much too small a space to put 10 people in and let them smash balls at you. But the team one 123 to 94. It was a good game all round really.
Saw Vicky today to go shopping for birthday presents. It was good seeing her outside of normal times. During the holidays I’ve been able to see her more often during the day since she’s kept her uni hours throughout the holidays. But next week Uni starts again and away we go, back to the busy life.
Three men are sitting in the maternity ward of a hospital waiting for the imminent birth of their respective children. One is an Australian, one a New Zealander, and the other is West Indian. They are all very nervous and pacing the floor.
All of a sudden, the doctor bursts through the double-doors saying ‘Gentlemen, you won’t believe this but your wives have all had their babies within five minutes of each other.’
The men are beside themselves with happiness and joy.
‘And,’ said the doctor, ‘ they have all had little boys.’
The fathers are ecstatic and congratulate each other over and over.
‘However, we do have one slight problem,’ the doctor said. ‘In all the confusion we may have mixed the babies up getting them to the nursery and would be grateful if you could join us there to try and help identify them.’
With that the Kiwi raced past the doctor and bolted to the nursery. Once inside he picked up the dark-skinned infant with dreadlocks, saying, ‘There is no doubt about it, this boy is mine!’
The doctor looked bewildered and said, ‘Well, sir, of all the babies I would have thought that maybe this child could be of West Indian descent.’
‘That’s a maybe,’ said the Kiwi, ‘but one of the other two is a bloody Aussie and I’m not taking the risk.’
In the beginning, there was a plan.
And then came the assumptions. And the assumptions were without form. And the plan was without substance.
And the darkness was upon the face of the workers. And they spoke among themselves and said, ‘It’s a crock of sh*t, and it stinks!’
And the workers went unto their supervisors and said, ‘It is a pail of dung, and we can’t live with the smell.’
And the supervisors went unto their managers and said, ‘It is a container of strong excrement, and none may abide by it.’
And the managers went unto their directors and said, ‘It is a vessel of fertiliser, and none may abide its strength.’
And the directors spoke among themselves, and said to one another, ‘It contains that which aids plant growth, and it is very strong.’
And the directors went to the vice-presidents and said unto them, ‘It promotes growth, and it is very powerful.’
And the vice-presidents went to the president and said unto him, ‘This new plan will actively promote growth, and vigour of the company with very powerful effects.’
And the president looked upon the plan, and said that it was good. And the plan became policy.
And this, my friends, is how sh*t happens!
Is it just me or is there a monopoly starting to arise in the Christian worship scene? Surely there must be more music makers out there than just Planetshakers and Hillsong United?
After a night of introducing new songs which were as bland as the inside of an empty jar, it just feels so meaningless to keep on with these meaningless and churned out songs.
Are there other bands which write suitable worship songs? Are there any decent church songs out there any more? Are we left with these manufactured songs which all sound the same mush and garble?
I hope not. I’m just sick of the generic Planetshaker/Hillsong song.
Give me some real meat!
So Vicky and I headed out to the movies with her siblings in tail, and there were a few interesting points I noted.
Firstly we saw The Dark Knight, and I must pay homage to the late Heath Ledger. His performance was outstanding and a truely entertaining character he was able to portray seemlessley. I nominate him now for an Oscar.
My main gripe is the way in which people treat the cinema itself. I still can’t believe people can leave their rubbish lying around the floor and seats without part of them thinking they should pick it up. I think people have gotten so used to it, that its no longer a shock factor to see the cinema in such a state. If that is how they treat public space I’d hate to see what their personal spaces are like. I seriously wonder if it has something to do with them not wanting to go to the movies with their mother’s, and because of that their mother’s aren’t there to clean up after them.
Add to that the common trend that is creeping into the rows of putting your feet up on the back of the seat in front of you, firstly disregarding the people that may be sitting in front and secondly disregarding the damage you could be causing to that chair further down the track. Even moving into our new church building which previously was a cinema, some youth were putting feet up on the chairs in front, totally disregarding the time and effort that went into cleaning the chairs up, totally unbeknowance to them.
It comes down to one thing.
Respect.
So, upon arriving at the train station on Thursday night, it was obvious something was up. Not least by the amount of people milling around with no sense of purpose. Signal faults had rendered the services useless (yet another reason why prices have to go up in September???)
What was interesting was observing the hands of people, hurridly going in to their pockets and returning with a cellphone shaped package on which to communicate with someone who cared.
Obviously many of them would have been calling those who loved them enough to brave the weather and pick them up from the other end, but I couldn’t help but think that many were just calling because they either needed to tell someone of their own travesty that the trains weren’t going, or because everyone else was telling someone. I wonder how many of them have never called home before at that time, but chose to purely because something had happened to them that they felt the instant need to tell someone else.
What did people use to do back in the day before cellphones became an extra extension to the hand?
Looking into the Mirror of Life
The weeks have gone by relatively smoothly since starting back at university. TE 5 was a success and enjoyed my time very much at my old primary school. We’re back at uni, finishing off teaching and looking for jobs. Quite a scary prospect!
Monday’s are hectic. I begin with an 8am lecture, which is never a good sign. Thats followed by hanging out at uni for two hours before another two hour tutorial. But after that, I have a four hour wait until my next class at 5pm! Catch the 6:20 bus back to Woburn, where I walk to BB to get started by 7:00pm. Get home 9:30pm and look forward to my day off on Tuesday!
Stu got baptized on the weekend. Congrats bro! It was a good time had by all and a good bunch of people to hang out with. Its quite amazing the number of BB connections there are!
‘Till next time…
Recently I spent a while going through a list of CSS Gallery sites (thanks JungleJar!) submitting my latest site to each of them. Please feel free to visit these sites and vote accordingly, should you feel the need to!
I am now showcased at the following sites:
Worship: The music starts.
This one is for all those museo’s out there.
I’ve played in many different worship bands in many different churches and different crowds over the years. My experiences have formed my own opinions on how worship works and how it should be done. Whether you want it to be or not, worship is somewhat formulated and regulated, uniform and prescribed, no matter how much God has a say in the way you do it. In saying that, I’m not suggesting that this is the only possible way in which worship should be done or can be done, nor am I saying that God can’t use His spirit to change and adapt a music team and the way the songs are played. What I do mean is that there are certain aspects in playing worship and worship songs that works, that bring people into God’s presence and leads them to a night filled with what they all really came to do - to meet with God.
The first songs are the crux of the service. If you miss the mark here then you’ve lost the whole service. The reason for this is because these first two or three songs set up the energy and the openess of the people for them to come into true worship later on.
Generally, starting with a powerful, upbeat praise song, especially in a youth service is almost innevidible. But not because it is just because thats how its always been done. Its done because it works. The reason why an upbeat, loud, powerful song works is because it gets the guys shouting, the girls dancing and the congregation have the chance to lose the energy that they brought with them - to get it all out. Whether we like it or not; whether we intend to or not, we all bring baggage from the week thats just been through those church doors. It could be anything, from fights with depression, to a lost wallet. That first song brings release of that baggage and gets us energised and then deenergised as we lose stamina in our shouting attempts of singing. That then opens up room for emotion, for feeling, for the doors of the spirit to open and God and His Holy Spirit can begin to do their work. I believe that the first song is vital in setting up that environment for which those people can come honestly and humbly into worshiping their one true God.
White Hand - Copyright © Peter Callesen, 2007
Browsing through the internet can lead you to many amazing things. One of these sites I stumbled on a while back, but only now realised just how ground breaking it really is!
Peter Callesen folds paper. Not to make paper darts or to fit something into an envelope, but to make sculptures.
A portfolio of his work can be found here, at www.petercallesen.com
