Not by our effort

A good sermon on Galatians 3

If

IF you can keep your head when all about you 
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings 
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Direct Instruction

A new program in a Cape York school sees amazing results

Songs this Sunday

Kingdom Song

Let Your Kingdom Come

In the Valley

How Great is Our God

10 Great Biographies

I've only read a few from this list. Would love to go out and buy the rest now, but I've got far too many unread books at home...

The Valley of Vision

Lord, high and holy,

meek and lowly,

Thou hast brought me to

the valley of vision,

where I live in the depths

but see Thee in the heights;

hemmed in by mountains of sin

I behold Thy glory.

Let me learn by paradox

that the way down is the way up,

that to be low is to be high,

that the broken heart is the healed heart,

that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,

that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,

that to have nothing is to possess all,

that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,

that to give is to receive,

that the valley is the place of vision.

Lord, in the daytime

stars can be seen from deepest wells,

and the deeper the wells

the brighter Thy stars shine;

let me find Thy light in my darkness,

Thy life in my death,

Thy joy in my sorrow,

Thy grace in my sin,

Thy riches in my poverty,

Thy glory in my valley.

Hitchens vs Hitchens

Interesting article by Simon Smart in the SMH

Choose a book cover for Con

Con needs help selecting a book cover

Cigarette Excise at Work

Was just in the service station and heard this...

"How much is [brand x]?"

"$17.50"

"Gosh, they are so expensive aren't they?" [long pause] "Don't worry about it."

6am this morning...

The boy was up early and decided to play guitar. He was softly playing "How I wish you were here" with a fuzzy, warm reverb sound happening. It was rather pleasant, actually...

What makes a good song?

Here's my answer

The American Future

I'm looking forward to watching this series by Simon Schama. Yes, it does look like it could be another dose of enviro-alarmism, but I like Schama so much that I don't mind...

Creation of Synthetic Life

MJ gets another piece published in the Herald

Prayer Night

Just had a marvelous prayer night at church. It was organised at the last moment, but about 30 people showed up. It was one of those great times when the air is thick with the grace and presence of God's Spirit...

The Qantum Dot Computer

This will be revolutionary

Not quite the whole truth...

The Premier caught in spin

Few Adult Converts

Andrew continues his series on tough truths from Connect09

A three speed economy

This makes sense to me. Ken Henry is clearly a smart cookie, and I suspect his tax and welfare blue print will be at the heart of economic discussion in this country for the next 10 years, much like the Campbell Report was in the 80s...

Songs for tomorrow

Kingdom Song

How Great is Our God

Let Your Kingdom Come

Jesus Thank You

Spent 2 hours doing housework this morning

This event is rare enough to merit a blog post. The apartment looks and feels clean. I feel good. Everyone wins...

News & Views has returned

This is a new low maintenance format, containing my eclectic mix of straight news, evangelical Christianity and conservative libertarianism...

537,242 hits since May 06

That's an average of 11,000/month over the last 4 years. Dunno who you are, but thanks for reading...

Top 10 World Cup Goals

Very entertaining

The Prince of Persia

A really fine review from Mark Hadley

Village Movie Club

We had our first "Movie Club" meeting at church last night. We watched WALL-E. It went really well - the film was good, and afterwards we had supper and chatted about the film. All good, and I'm looking forward to the next one. 

The problem with "looking for love"

I heard Sharon Stone doing an interview on the radio yesterday. The 52 year old actress, who has had 3 husbands, was describing her parents 55 year marriage. She burst into tears as she said, "I want to find love like that". It strikes me that instead of looking for a love like her parents had, what she needs to do is learn to love like her parents loved. 

Eternity Newspaper

Just got the latest copy - a bumper edition of 24 pages. Looking great too!

From my bio of Richard Johnson

The Rev John Crowther, Johnson's appointed assistant, is telling William Wilberforce how his ship collided with an iceberg in the Southern Ocean -

When the ship's condition was altogether hopeless Captain Riou sent for me into the cabin, and asked me, "Crowther, how do you feel?"

"How? Why, I thank God, pretty comfortable."

"I cannot say I do. I had a pious mother, and I have not practised what she taught me, but I must do my duty. The boats will not hold one-third our crew, and if I left the vessel there would be a general rush into them and everyone would perish. I shall stay by the ship, but you shall have a place - and be sure you go into the Master's [navigator's] boat for he knows what he is about, and if any boat reaches the shore it will be his."

In the bustle of embarking, I got into the wrong boat, and found out my mistake too late to alter it. The boats however, neared each other to make an exchange for some of their provisions, and I heard Riou call to me, "If you've a heart Crowther, jump!" I made the attempt, and just reaching the boat fell backward in the water, but was pulled in amongst them.

What happens next is remarkable...

Forte Free

This is a terrific free tool for music notation

The Pacific

I've been watching The Pacific every week. I've enjoyed it very much, though I can't help but feel it doesn't live up to Band of Brothers. How could it? One difference is that there seemed much more variety in the episodes of BoB. The Pacific seems to be an endless grind through essentially indistinguishable islands. Which is probably what the war was like, really. Don't get me wrong though - I've really enjoyed the series, and there have been some great characters. Gary Sweet did a great job as a gunnery sergeant a few weeks ago, and "Snafu" is also a terrific character. 

The Creeds

Sandy has written an interesting series on their usefulness in a modern setting

Jesus, Lover of my Soul

I like this version of the old Wesley hymn. I've put together my own notation of the song in "C", which is what the mp3 uses...

Oh yeah

RIP, Dio

Wall-E

We are screening Wall-E at church this Friday night, and having a chat about it afterwards. I'm looking forward to seeing it again, and I hope the event is well attended...

A truth too far

Tony Abbott cops a hiding for being a bit too frank

Massive land release in Sydney

More here. Will be interesting to see if it does anything to home prices...

Galatians 2

Heard a really good sermon on Galatians 2 yesterday. Will post a link when it comes through...

The status quo is not working

Andrew Nixon starts a series on hard truths from Connect 09

Russell's Top Five

Click here

Shameful admission

I actually rather like "Alejandro" by Lady Gaga. 

John Newton to Richard Johnson

"I have not been disheartened by your apparent want of success. I have been told that skilful gardeners will undertake to sow and raise a salad for dinner in the short time while the meat is roasting. But no gardener can raise oaks with such expedition. You are sent to New Holland, not to sow salad seeds, but to plant acorns; and your labor will not be lost, though the first appearances may be very small, and the progress very slow. You are, I trust, planting for the next Century. I have a good hope that your oaks will one day spring up and flourish, and produce other acorns, which, in due time, will take root, and spread among the islands and nations in the Southern Ocean."

Eph 4:31-32

Costello responds to the budget

Some very sharp analysis. I was struck by this - 

And the luckiest break in the past year was the collapse of the Copenhagen climate talks - because Labor's medium-term strategy is to ride the mining boom for all it is worth. Whatever it says in overseas environmental forums, back here it proposes to exploit rising prices for carbon energy and carbon intensive mining for every dollar it can extract.

David Cameron's Faith

"I've a sort of fairly classic Church of England faith...I am a Christian, I go to church, I believe in God..." (from Wikipedia)

Stairs

My whole life I've wanted to live somewhere with a stair case. Now, at long last, I do. And it annoys me no end, I really don't like it... Be careful what you wish for.

David Cameron is the new British PM

More here

Budget

Solid effort by the government, though I think the mining tax is a bit of a problem. If they change it into a proper super tax, it would probably be ok (though less profitable). One big item is that income tax returns will disappear for millions, replaced by a standard refund of $500, rising to $1000 in a couple of years time. I suspect this will ultimately pave the way for the abolition of most income tax deductions, to be replaced by lower overall income tax rates. All fine and dandy, except for the problem of bracket creep...

God's Sovereignty and Human Responsibility

A helpful post from MJ

Proverbs 27:6

Encouraged

I woke up this morning feeling very sad - sadder than I think I've felt for a while. I go to bed tonight feeling a little more hopeful...

Voters lose confidence in Rudd

The turnaround has been astounding

The four horsemen of marriage doom

Good post from Nicky

The power went off...

The power went off at church this morning, near the end. We pushed on and did the last song acoustic, and it sounded great. I'm now thinking about how to do more "unplugged" stuff in the future...

Songs for church this morning

How Great is Our God

He Is Holy

Jesus, Thank You

How Deep

2 good flix

Had a quiet evening with the girl watching DVDs. Saw "Up In the Air" and "Moon" - both very good. 

Finish your food - or pay more

Patrons at this Sydney restaurant are charged 30% more if they don't finish their meals. I rather like this idea - I hate food waste...

Russell's Top Five

Click here

Best response to ethics class to date

I recently heard of a Sydney minister who said that, if his Scripture classes diminished to nothing, he would volunteer to teach the ethics class instead. I thought that was a great response. Another idea has occurred to me - one of our publishers could use the 10 week ethics course as the basis for a 10 week ethics component in SRE, which would cover the same ground, but also include a Christian commentary on the particular ethical question. Someone else suggested that we develop a non-partisan comparative religion course (perhaps based on Dickson's book) which we could offer to schools as an alternative to SRE. These are all really productive ideas. 

South

I'm currently reading "South", which is Ernest Shackleton's chronicle of his voyage to the Antarctic in 1915. I've always liked Priestly's assessment of the Antarctic explorers - "For scientific leadership, give me Scott; for swift and efficient travel, Amundsen; but when you are in a hopeless situation, when there seems to be no way out, get on your knees and pray for Shackleton."

Henry Tax Review

Here is the exec summary

Songs for Little Rooms

My review of the latest Emu album

I've started Chapter 13

You might be interested in the process I follow when writing a chapter of my bio of Richard Johnson. Here's how it works. I now have a large collection of source material at home on my bookshelves, in the form of books, print-outs and photo-copies. I've got additional source material on my hard drive, as well as a number of sources on the internet. 

I start by assembling all of the primary source material I can find that is relevant to the chapter I am writing. Where necessary, I scan it in and use OCR software to turn it into soft-copy. I then take all of these primary source extracts and place them into a single document, and spend some time sorting them into appropriate order, usually, though not necessarily, chronologically. Once finished, I save a backup copy of this document for future reference.

I then begin writing the chapter, filling in the narrative gaps around the source quotes, and making appropriate and hopefully interesting observations as I go. When I come across each quote, I'll usually trim it down to keep the narrative moving, and sometimes I'll even discard the quote altogether and simply paraphrase the ideas. 

That's essentially the process. Some chapters feel like they write themselves. Others are pried out of the keyboard only with great difficulty. That's writing...

SRE on Trial

Ah dear. I must admit, I'm not a fan of this sort of alarmist, conspiracy-theory-ist approach to the issue. I don't see that it will win any hearts and minds to our cause. And if they are serious about the implied threat of a legal challenge to the ethics class, well, it's game over, man, game over...

Songs sung today

How Can This Be?

He Is Holy

Jesus, Thank You

How Deep

Thoughts on church planting

Rach has some interesting and provocative ideas

Beneath Hill 60

Just saw this with Matt. A really good story, really well told. These are the sorts of movies Australians should be making...

Tax Overhaul

Some good measures in there

British Poll

Looks like political change is coming to Britain. Will be interesting to see what a conservative government looks like in Britain again. Will also be interesting to see what happens with the Liberal Democrats...

Henry Tax Review released today

Looks set to be a very influential document

Ethics trial hurts SRE attendance

Story at SA. I suspect this is the appeal of the new. I'd be surprised if the ethics classes can sustain student interest for 40 weeks a year, and I think we will see a drift back to SRE.

Some of the Bali 9 find God

This story continues to fascinate the Australian media