About two years ago my Dad bought a cattle block. My Dad, like me and my Grandfather, however, has never realy been much of a cattleman: he seems to be changing, however. He doesn't do much of the day to day work, but he does seem to be taking more interest in cattle than I've ever seen before.
I am, too. One of the changes in moving out to the South Burnett is the change in butchers - the previous owner of the Kilkivan butcher started an appreciation for good grassfed steak, and the others have done good things to encourage our meat eating generally, whether it be in the line of small goods, bacon or Barker's Creek pork steaks, they've got good products and sell them for a reasonable price.
As a kid I can remember my Mum cremating steaks - cooked on too low a heat, for too long, and turned too often. In her defence, she says my Grandmother was worse. You would have too feel sorry for the cow - it was bad enough to die once without having to go through that experience. But that has changed - a good steak, cooked (by someone other than Mum) quickly on a high teperature plate is an entirely different proposition, and I think this might be why the old man and I are appreciating cattle more now than we did before.
One of the books I never got to read over my college break was the Tain (The Cattle Raid of Cooley): the Irish Illiad. Isn't it strange that the Greek national saga is about everyone going to war over a woman, and our heroes go to war over a steak? And in the end, the Brown Bull of Culange goes mad and kills himself by taking on a dirty big rock an losing.
Steaks taste good, but cattle are still stupid.
Sunday, 27 February 2011
Friday, 4 February 2011
Book learning
As I reflected on my resignation from the Uniting Church the other day (perhaps as I was rereading the letter) I realised how those brilliant moments of clarity so often in my life have come during or upon reflecting upon reading something in print.
Davis McCaughey's commentary on the 'Basis of Union' and Andrew Dutney's reflection on Church Union were the two key works that said 'The Basis of Union isn't for me'. When my old minister filmed my testimony a few years back, again and again my words were, 'I read this book, and it changed me' or 'I read these two books that really changed the way I thought about how God works, and it made him more real to me', and to add emphasis they spliced in images of those books. Me, and books. When people asked me how I went with the flood recently, one of the first things I would say was, 'The books were okay', and how to keep them dry is one thing that up my mind in case it happens again.
Going to college is a temptation as well as a privilege - I am surrounded by so many great books, yet know I only have 5 subjects this semester; the temptation is ever present to read something completely unrelated, and I often do, if only to give myself a break from what I am studying for credit. At the moment it is on baptism - 'The Waters That Divides', on the business of infant or believer's baptism. I used to be strongly behind believer's baptism, but at the moment I'm coming more and more toward seeing infant baptism not merely as a valid choice, but as a choice I myself might support.
Davis McCaughey's commentary on the 'Basis of Union' and Andrew Dutney's reflection on Church Union were the two key works that said 'The Basis of Union isn't for me'. When my old minister filmed my testimony a few years back, again and again my words were, 'I read this book, and it changed me' or 'I read these two books that really changed the way I thought about how God works, and it made him more real to me', and to add emphasis they spliced in images of those books. Me, and books. When people asked me how I went with the flood recently, one of the first things I would say was, 'The books were okay', and how to keep them dry is one thing that up my mind in case it happens again.
Going to college is a temptation as well as a privilege - I am surrounded by so many great books, yet know I only have 5 subjects this semester; the temptation is ever present to read something completely unrelated, and I often do, if only to give myself a break from what I am studying for credit. At the moment it is on baptism - 'The Waters That Divides', on the business of infant or believer's baptism. I used to be strongly behind believer's baptism, but at the moment I'm coming more and more toward seeing infant baptism not merely as a valid choice, but as a choice I myself might support.
Tuesday, 25 January 2011
I was thinking about common grace an awful lot lately when my place got swamped, and all sorts of people from my neighbours (they were closest and helped out first - after all, we were cut off from the rest of the world for about two or three days) to my family to people in my Apex club and my church, as well as some kind people from the local school who just turned up one afternoon and wanted to lend a hand and help clean up. Some of these people were Christians. Some were not. Some I have no idea. What I do know is that in a time of need they helped me, and I am grateful to them all.
This would be an argument from some (not that anyone who helped out was into a gabfest on philosophy - you had to keep your gob shut to keep the silt out) that religion is irrelevant and that as long as in times like this we all pull together and help each other out that is the important thing. I don't think so - it didn't was with me before and it doesn't now.
I was raised as an atheist. My parents are both members of the 'good person religion' - they claim that either nothing is out there or if there is they don't know what it is. And I don't know what it is, either, even if I think I do. The most important thing is that you are a 'good person'.
Being a good person is important - I received help from all sorts of people who were doing a good thing - helping out someone who couldn't help themselves (ie, me). At times in the past I've had the chance to help other people out, and I hope I will have the chance to do so into the future. It makes me fell good, and it is the right thing to do - it accords with my conscience. In addition to this, I know as a Christian it is what God wants me to do. That is why he gave us all a conscience to begin with.
When we do good, or when we see other people doing good to us, what we see is image bearers of a good God doing good, just as their Creator did before them and does beside them. No matter if people deny that they were made by a good God with their words, yet they cannot help but do good things at least some of the time because they bear His image still. What I see when I see people of whatever religion doing good to help someone in need is that this is the goodness, the grace, of finite, fallen, imperfect people. How much more, then, should we not be open to the grace that comes from the perfectly good and incredibly strong God who made us?
This would be an argument from some (not that anyone who helped out was into a gabfest on philosophy - you had to keep your gob shut to keep the silt out) that religion is irrelevant and that as long as in times like this we all pull together and help each other out that is the important thing. I don't think so - it didn't was with me before and it doesn't now.
I was raised as an atheist. My parents are both members of the 'good person religion' - they claim that either nothing is out there or if there is they don't know what it is. And I don't know what it is, either, even if I think I do. The most important thing is that you are a 'good person'.
Being a good person is important - I received help from all sorts of people who were doing a good thing - helping out someone who couldn't help themselves (ie, me). At times in the past I've had the chance to help other people out, and I hope I will have the chance to do so into the future. It makes me fell good, and it is the right thing to do - it accords with my conscience. In addition to this, I know as a Christian it is what God wants me to do. That is why he gave us all a conscience to begin with.
When we do good, or when we see other people doing good to us, what we see is image bearers of a good God doing good, just as their Creator did before them and does beside them. No matter if people deny that they were made by a good God with their words, yet they cannot help but do good things at least some of the time because they bear His image still. What I see when I see people of whatever religion doing good to help someone in need is that this is the goodness, the grace, of finite, fallen, imperfect people. How much more, then, should we not be open to the grace that comes from the perfectly good and incredibly strong God who made us?
Acts of God
One of my neighbours grew a crop under contract to supply a certain quanity to a designated buyer. It has rained like Billy-oh on it for the last couple of months (basically since it came out of the ground) and even though it has dried up and it has started to grow again he isn't likely to get his required tonnage. However, he has a clause in his contract that allows him to default if it is an 'Act of God' that prevents him from harvesting the right amount, and the unusually high rainfall (which led to the unusually high flood we've just had) will certainly qualify for that.
Hmmm.
If one of my neighbours can't grow a decent crop because it rains far in excess of what it usually does around here (or it doesn't rain at all), and we collectively blame God, who gets the credit when he does the same work with the same inputs and gets an average yeald in an average year? Is that solely an 'Act of Dave'?
I know that Greg and Dave and Jason and so on work hard and smart to grow what they can, and sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't, but is it only the really crook weather that God is in charge of, or does He deserve some credit when things go right, too?
Hmmm.
If one of my neighbours can't grow a decent crop because it rains far in excess of what it usually does around here (or it doesn't rain at all), and we collectively blame God, who gets the credit when he does the same work with the same inputs and gets an average yeald in an average year? Is that solely an 'Act of Dave'?
I know that Greg and Dave and Jason and so on work hard and smart to grow what they can, and sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't, but is it only the really crook weather that God is in charge of, or does He deserve some credit when things go right, too?
Saturday, 1 January 2011
Submission
Authority is an interesting thing to think about. We all have at least one, whether we like to admit it or not. Having been reading a bit of the Uniting Church's Basis of Union and some commentaries upon it has raised the issue of the authority of scripture. As Davis McCaughey notes, the Uniting Church recognises the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments have been recieved by the church and are an authority over the Church, but the Basis is intentional in not getting bogged down in what kind of authority the scriptures are.
Along the lines of authority I can't help but reflect back on a discussion during a class in which one of the teachers, reflecting on the rape of Dinah, pointed out the treatment of Dinah as property by both the Canaanites and her own family and how she was abused on virtually every front as a human being. As she became more emotional and vehmenent, she closed her discourse by saying that this (and other similarly violent passages in the Old Testament like it), for her, was not the word of God.
This raised one immediate concern on my part, which was that I had been too flipant in my reading of these passages (it was one of my favourites when I was 18 and just starting to read the Bible because of the successful against the odds revenge by Dinah's brothers) and of the abuse that women are especially vulnerable to, and more so in a society like the Ancient Near East.
It also raised another concern which I thought about more as time passed: how was my teacher able to distinguish what parts of the Bible were and were not the word of God, relevant to the teaching and building up of the church? What if she had a passage which she considered to be the word of God but I did not consider to be the word of God? Who then would be the arbiter of what was authoritative in such a dispute? It seemed then, as it does now, that my teacher was displacing the Bible and the God who inspired it from the rightful place of authority over the church. Such 'nasty' passages are in the Bible, I believe, not because God condones despicable behaviour (either by those who are his covenant people or those who are not) but because the Bible is a real book for the real world, and in the real world despicable things happen. Thankfully, God recognises the problem and himself ultimately provides the solution.
Along the lines of authority I can't help but reflect back on a discussion during a class in which one of the teachers, reflecting on the rape of Dinah, pointed out the treatment of Dinah as property by both the Canaanites and her own family and how she was abused on virtually every front as a human being. As she became more emotional and vehmenent, she closed her discourse by saying that this (and other similarly violent passages in the Old Testament like it), for her, was not the word of God.
This raised one immediate concern on my part, which was that I had been too flipant in my reading of these passages (it was one of my favourites when I was 18 and just starting to read the Bible because of the successful against the odds revenge by Dinah's brothers) and of the abuse that women are especially vulnerable to, and more so in a society like the Ancient Near East.
It also raised another concern which I thought about more as time passed: how was my teacher able to distinguish what parts of the Bible were and were not the word of God, relevant to the teaching and building up of the church? What if she had a passage which she considered to be the word of God but I did not consider to be the word of God? Who then would be the arbiter of what was authoritative in such a dispute? It seemed then, as it does now, that my teacher was displacing the Bible and the God who inspired it from the rightful place of authority over the church. Such 'nasty' passages are in the Bible, I believe, not because God condones despicable behaviour (either by those who are his covenant people or those who are not) but because the Bible is a real book for the real world, and in the real world despicable things happen. Thankfully, God recognises the problem and himself ultimately provides the solution.
Thursday, 30 December 2010
Year's End
First year of college is over, and I survived - further more, I enjoyed the experience (most of it, anyway). And I passed all my subjects.
I have found myself this year doing the three things I least wanted to do upon my finishing grade 12 - living in a city, going to university and public speaking. Now I find myself living in Brisbane (part-time, at least) and going to college at St Lucia in order to become a better preacher. Like I tell people, don't say God doesn't have a sense of humour. More surprising than doing these three things is that I actually enjoy what I'm doing.
One of the features of starting with about 30 other people is that one gets to make a few new friends. The opportunity to pick the lecturer's brains over different issues I've struggled with for years has been wonderful, and the chance to dive more deeply into the word than I've had the chance to before has been wonderful.
College has also been very humbling - daily I rediscover my ignorance, and often, especially in Greek and Hebrew, another mountain of knowledge to climb. But at least I'm not alone. And the learning has been good in giving me a bigger framework to put the different books of the Bible, especially the Old Testament, together.
The outlook of my college is also rather different from what I've encountered in the past. Last year during an Old Testament course I was doing I was told that the Documentary Hypothesis was fair dinkum and that the Pentateuch (Genesis-Deuteronomy) was a late cobbling together of various stories (and invented stories) of Israel's past and as such was in no way historically reliable (even on the off chance some of it might be true). I'd come across the Documentary Hypothesis (JEPD) about seven years before (and had ended up discounting it), but there was something disconcerting in the way it was presented at that time - perhaps the overlay of post-modern thought and the declaration by the teacher that doubt was essential, certainty unobtainable, and the Bible unreliable (and indeed, often counter-productive to what we were trying to do in the church). I know, of course, that such people exist in my church, especially among the ordained, in large numbers, but until you actually brush up against them at forums like these you can forget that they exist and that they teach such things for the church's benefit.
Contrast to QTC - I was informed again and again that the Bible is the Word of God, inerrant and reliable, in both Old and New Testaments. The most stunning difference lay in the Pentateuch (my Hebrew/OT lecturer did his PhD under Gordon Wenham, hence part of the reason). One lecture in particular (which actually had no value toward our assessment) saw him go over why the Documentary Hypothesis (Wellhausen) was in conflict with the other tool of the time (the history of religion school of Gunkel) were in fundamental conflict with each other (they cut the Pentateuch up into little bits, but the trouble was they made the cuts in all different places). Starting in the 1970's, the Emperor's clothes started to be seen for what they were, and more and more scholars looked at the unity of the Pentateuch, and its literary style and purpose. It should be noted that although the Documentary Hypothesis has been largely overthrown, its language still has to be retained because it was in fashion for so long, and also that there is no clear replacement for it. For Evangelicals the obvious answer is Mosaic authorship, but there are many models for this, too.
Academic standards are also pretty high. This has been a bit of a shock to the system, not having had homework since 1996 (and at least then it was all in English) but at least I chose to do it this time around. The certificate level stuff I did towards lay preacher accreditation and the hours of listening to lectures/sermons by Don Carson and others on mp3 helped along the way.
Alround Good times. Hope I can keep it up in 2011.
I have found myself this year doing the three things I least wanted to do upon my finishing grade 12 - living in a city, going to university and public speaking. Now I find myself living in Brisbane (part-time, at least) and going to college at St Lucia in order to become a better preacher. Like I tell people, don't say God doesn't have a sense of humour. More surprising than doing these three things is that I actually enjoy what I'm doing.
One of the features of starting with about 30 other people is that one gets to make a few new friends. The opportunity to pick the lecturer's brains over different issues I've struggled with for years has been wonderful, and the chance to dive more deeply into the word than I've had the chance to before has been wonderful.
College has also been very humbling - daily I rediscover my ignorance, and often, especially in Greek and Hebrew, another mountain of knowledge to climb. But at least I'm not alone. And the learning has been good in giving me a bigger framework to put the different books of the Bible, especially the Old Testament, together.
The outlook of my college is also rather different from what I've encountered in the past. Last year during an Old Testament course I was doing I was told that the Documentary Hypothesis was fair dinkum and that the Pentateuch (Genesis-Deuteronomy) was a late cobbling together of various stories (and invented stories) of Israel's past and as such was in no way historically reliable (even on the off chance some of it might be true). I'd come across the Documentary Hypothesis (JEPD) about seven years before (and had ended up discounting it), but there was something disconcerting in the way it was presented at that time - perhaps the overlay of post-modern thought and the declaration by the teacher that doubt was essential, certainty unobtainable, and the Bible unreliable (and indeed, often counter-productive to what we were trying to do in the church). I know, of course, that such people exist in my church, especially among the ordained, in large numbers, but until you actually brush up against them at forums like these you can forget that they exist and that they teach such things for the church's benefit.
Contrast to QTC - I was informed again and again that the Bible is the Word of God, inerrant and reliable, in both Old and New Testaments. The most stunning difference lay in the Pentateuch (my Hebrew/OT lecturer did his PhD under Gordon Wenham, hence part of the reason). One lecture in particular (which actually had no value toward our assessment) saw him go over why the Documentary Hypothesis (Wellhausen) was in conflict with the other tool of the time (the history of religion school of Gunkel) were in fundamental conflict with each other (they cut the Pentateuch up into little bits, but the trouble was they made the cuts in all different places). Starting in the 1970's, the Emperor's clothes started to be seen for what they were, and more and more scholars looked at the unity of the Pentateuch, and its literary style and purpose. It should be noted that although the Documentary Hypothesis has been largely overthrown, its language still has to be retained because it was in fashion for so long, and also that there is no clear replacement for it. For Evangelicals the obvious answer is Mosaic authorship, but there are many models for this, too.
Academic standards are also pretty high. This has been a bit of a shock to the system, not having had homework since 1996 (and at least then it was all in English) but at least I chose to do it this time around. The certificate level stuff I did towards lay preacher accreditation and the hours of listening to lectures/sermons by Don Carson and others on mp3 helped along the way.
Alround Good times. Hope I can keep it up in 2011.
Sunday, 28 February 2010
OWER THE HILLS AN' FAUR AWA'
W.D. Cocker
Ower the hills an' faur awa',
Ower the hills an' faur awa',
The bravest tune the pipers blaw
Is "Ower the hills an' faur awa'."
The bonniest floo'ers that deck the green,
The lassies wi' the brichtest een,
The fairest sichts, the ferlies braw
Are ower the hills an' faur awa'.
The dreams we dream, the joys we crave,
The gowd, the gear an' a' the lave
Are set by Fortune's fashious law
Ower the hills an' faur awa'.
Adventure, like the luring licht
That kelpies wave ower bogs at nicht,
Oh! that's the bait that draws us a'
Ower the hills an' faur awa'.
When we were bairnies in the glen,
Were we no' fain to grow to men?
To streetch oor wings an' croosley craw
Ower the hills an' faur awa'.
At sodgers then amang the braes
We played, nor kent in future days
We'd gang the gate wi' guns an' a'
Ower the hills an' faur awa'.
We've had oor wish an' crossed the tide,
An' seen the touns whaur strangers bide,
An' things we maun forget we saw
Ower the hills an' faur awa'.
Ower the hills an' faur awa',
Ower the hills an' faur awa',
The hills o' hame are best o' a',
But ah! they lie sae faur awa'.
Flanders, 1917
W.D. Cocker
Ower the hills an' faur awa',
Ower the hills an' faur awa',
The bravest tune the pipers blaw
Is "Ower the hills an' faur awa'."
The bonniest floo'ers that deck the green,
The lassies wi' the brichtest een,
The fairest sichts, the ferlies braw
Are ower the hills an' faur awa'.
The dreams we dream, the joys we crave,
The gowd, the gear an' a' the lave
Are set by Fortune's fashious law
Ower the hills an' faur awa'.
Adventure, like the luring licht
That kelpies wave ower bogs at nicht,
Oh! that's the bait that draws us a'
Ower the hills an' faur awa'.
When we were bairnies in the glen,
Were we no' fain to grow to men?
To streetch oor wings an' croosley craw
Ower the hills an' faur awa'.
At sodgers then amang the braes
We played, nor kent in future days
We'd gang the gate wi' guns an' a'
Ower the hills an' faur awa'.
We've had oor wish an' crossed the tide,
An' seen the touns whaur strangers bide,
An' things we maun forget we saw
Ower the hills an' faur awa'.
Ower the hills an' faur awa',
Ower the hills an' faur awa',
The hills o' hame are best o' a',
But ah! they lie sae faur awa'.
Flanders, 1917
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