Made the move over to Movable Type. In theory you should never see this page but in case you do the new blog is at: Greenflame

Interesting article over the ditch at signposts:
signposts: I hate the "emerging" church

Spawned a few thoughts for the (non?)emergentkiwi too

Saw this today and it made me feel sad. Sad for those who want to have children and can't have them, and sad that someone makes money out of selling these substitutes. It may help some people but it gave me a creepy feeling too.

ic Newcastle - Virtual babies aim to ease parenting pain

In trying to track down some art work by Kenn Brown I found this amazing piece of digital art work from found in New Scientist Magazine. It's loaded as a FlashVR object so it takes a while but it's awesome.

Kenn Brown: DNA

I came across this today while trying to find something completely different using Google. After a quick skim it looks like something that I will be coming back to every now and then for a read. Nice to have non-US/non-British opinions. Check out: Social Justice and Faith Magazine in Canada called The Social Edge.com

David Lyon once wrote "Reality refuses to go away, even when the air is thickly postmodern." It was a quote I remembered today when we lost a bit of our roof. A clear, calm day in Auckland - light breeze and no rain. Then about 3pm this afternoon a single huge gust of wind, the house shook and then a second or two later a loud bang followed by several smaller ones.

On checking we'd lost a tile from one of the ridges of the roof over the rumpus room which left a nice big hole looking inside the house. This being Auckland it's bound to rain soon and this being NZ it's a public holiday today - no roofing people available. So it's covered up with plastic and bricks until someone, better qualified than me, can fix things back together.

It was bizarre. We haven't had a breath of wind since. And "act of God" perhaps?

Made me put my discussions on contemporary culture, emerging churches etc. into perspective. Food, shelter and water refuse to be deconstructed. Maybe that is why when we feed, clothe and shelter others we do it to Christ as well.

After Wednesday's conversation with Steve and his comment on this blog that I might need to work on developing an urban (urbane?) spirituality I've been thinking.

Two things are rattling around in my head.

The first is the prayer Jesus in the City by Doug Gay (from the book Alternative Worship).
It's a prayer that I've read several times, and used in different contexts, and it always speaks
to me. It ends with the lines

God of the City,
Maker, Saviour, Spirit,
Come close to hear us and speak to us and touch us tonight.
So we pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

The second thing is a song by The Mutton Birds called Envy of Angels which starts

Look over there, you used to say
The shape of the land beneath the street
Ridges and valleys and underground streams
You have to know what's under your feet

So you can make things strong enough
To take the weight
The weight of all the people
That haven't been born

That's what you said to me
And it's the envy of angels

Don McGlashan of the Mutton Birds writes of Auckland in 1998

Arriving in Auckland, sitting at the lights surrounded by pristine four-wheel drives, we read a billboard which says: "There's no such thing as an unfair advantage, unless it's you that doesn't have it". Not a motto to build a civilised city on, but it seems to fit just now. It's a harsher, more red-necked place than we left. And behind the billboards and half-finished apartment blocks, it's more fragile as well. The electricity has failed, and the sewage and transport systems might not be far behind. Friends seem more resigned and helpless about the state of things than I remember them to be, too. How does that happen? Would I feel that way if I was still living here? Does the rest of the country feel the same?

So two things (among the many): the closeness of God in the city and a deep knowledge of this place.

Barclay Barrios of Rutgers University, New Brunswick has put together a nice site called The Year of the Blog: Weblogs in the Writing Classroom. It's got an overview of 2003 with respect to blogging, blogging resources, blogs as writing practice, blogs in the classroom and some other stuff.

Just switched to HaloScan comments from Enetation to see if that improves the commenting in the interim before I shift to MT or pMachine. For those of you who posted comments on the old system they are still there in the ether but just not visible at the moment.

Hopefully this improves things.

A few things today.

Had a nice cup of coffee and chat with Steve at Auckland University today and then hitched a ride with Rachel (thanks!) (and Steve) back out to West Auckland. Good to hear that Steve's settling into Christchurch and that the Auckland course is going well. Disappointed that Rachel doesn't have a red sports car though.

I also popped along to the public lecture on "The Biological Basis of Memory" by Nobel Laureate Prof. Eric Kandel. Intriguing stuff. Some nice background material for the stuff on neurotheology that's waiting to be read.

Also you may want to check out the following DVD. I heard the end of an interview with Dean Hapeta on National Radio at the weekend and the Ngatahi project sounds really interesting.

NGATAHI - KNOW THE LINKS is a stimulating streetwise orchestration of philosophical thought focusing on socio-political issues amongst indigenous and marginalised peoples in twenty countries.

Shot, produced, directed and edited by Dean Hapeta a.k.a Te Kupu parts 1 & 2 of this four part "rapumentary" series are available now on DVD featuring footage from Canada, england, France, Colombia, Hawai'i, Cuba, USA, Jamaica, Australia and Aotearoa.

There's more information at NGATAHI - KNOW THE LINKS with a fuller description at Ngatahi.

Oh! And it rained a lot today. Again. Must be summer here in Auckland. Expressed the opinion to Steve that living in Auckland must be the equivalent to the exodus in the desert. Sooner or later you get to leave and enter the "promised land". Either that or Auckland is Purgatory.

Encouraged by Paul's entry on Prodigal Kiwi Blog: Colossian Targums I printed a copy of Brian Walsh's Colossian Targums: Reading Paul in a Postmodern Context and was glad that I did so.

The second part, entitled "Targum #2 - Subversive Poetry in a Postmodern World:
Colossians 1.15-20", was amazing. A couple of parts linked in with some cyberculture stuff I've been reading.

In the face of a disconnected world
  where home is a domain in cyberspace
  where neighbourhood is a chat room
  where public space is a shopping mall
  where information technology promises
  a tuned in, reconnected world
    all things hold together in Christ
      the creation is a deeply personal cosmos
      all cohering and interconnected in Jesus

Now I'm off to play board games with my three and a half year old daughter. Enough virtuality for today.

I've had the library's copy of Playing God by Glenn Colquhoun (2002) out for a week or so and have been reading it in the evenings. Colquhoun is a doctor who writes poetry and this collection is out of his medical experiences here in NZ. Like most poetry I struggle with it sometimes but on the whole I have found his poems engaging, challenging and refreshing. Today I saw his poem about Asthma and it fitted in with life just right.

The poem ends with the lines

This small boy has a flock of birds
let loose inside his chest.

And quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle
the magpies said.

The last part is from a poem by Denis Glover

Here's a link to Colquhoun's bio and "To the girl who stood beside me at the checkout counter of Whitcoulls bookstore in Hamilton on Tuesday" (Overseas readers substitute in the name of your local stationer/bookseller for Whitcoulls.) (Also I've bought many books in the Hamilton Whitcoulls)

And another to his poem "Bred in South Auckland". Another that captures Auckland life.

Philip came home this afternoon (after we were told he'd be in for another night). Parents are relieved and tired and siblings are happy to see Philip and their parents again.

Thanks again for the support.