We are now inland, in the Albury/Wadonga area while Beth attends a conference. We will take train out again close to midnight on Wed with an all night trip putting us back in Wollongong around 6AM. Rather than pay the high internet price at the hotel we have here, we have been walking the few blocks to use the free Wifi that is offered in McDonalds here in Australia but that means less blog and facebook etc.
Trip here started out on bus through a mountian area national forest with sharp switchbacks ,the bus had to stop and back up for one them. Great scenery.
If I wanted to put together a photo art collection on trees this would be the place to find it. Magnificent forms and character.
Nick truned 18!
Monday, June 29, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Nicks Notes
Day 10
On day 10 we explored the Buddhist temple in attempts of registering for the one day retreat (which we succeeded in doing and is talked about in the day 12 post). We had a really great vegetarian dinner there and went on a beautiful walk / exploration of the area. If you want a really descriptive recollection you can check Sara’s profile. Later that night we all went to a movie together at the local movie theatre. It is really interesting how American the culture is here. The movies were all from the states and the music is all main stream songs from “the states” as the US is referred to here. But luckily, the diverse population, beautiful landscapes, and wonderful experience have made up for it. However, I have yet to see a kangaroo…
Day 11
We packed. This was a day to pack for our travel to Albury. Other than that, this day wasn’t really active. Mostly hanging out, loading pictures, and eating all the perishable foods.
Day 12
Definitely a high light of the trip, if not my favorite day so far – our one day retreat at the Buddhist temple! We arrived and got started at 9:00 am with tea and registration. After that we had an introduction to the retreat where we met our instructor the Buddhist nun reverend Yo. She was awesome! After our introduction we headed out to the court yard for Tai Chi! It was wonderful and I am excited to practice it more. After that was basic meditation, which I also intend to keep practicing. Then was lunch. We were instructed to eat in silence (most of the retreat was done in silence) and we were also instructed to chew our food 20 times so that we were aware of what we were doing and not letting our minds wander and overwork. A lot of the retreat was about being self aware (as is a lot of the Buddhist belief) and it was a really great experience for me because I tend to think far to much instead of just taking and focusing on what I’m doing. I’m glad I had the experience to open my eyes and “be awake” like the fish. I aim to hold on to what I learned. After lunch we got a tour of the temple and learned more about Buddhism. It was really interesting and very inspiring. We concluded with some deep meditation and a living meditation / feedback session were we learned a little bit more about Buddhism and had opportunity to ask questions. It was a wonderful, life changing experience that I recommend to anybody who’s even remotely interested. In fact, even if you’re not interested I still recommend it!
On day 10 we explored the Buddhist temple in attempts of registering for the one day retreat (which we succeeded in doing and is talked about in the day 12 post). We had a really great vegetarian dinner there and went on a beautiful walk / exploration of the area. If you want a really descriptive recollection you can check Sara’s profile. Later that night we all went to a movie together at the local movie theatre. It is really interesting how American the culture is here. The movies were all from the states and the music is all main stream songs from “the states” as the US is referred to here. But luckily, the diverse population, beautiful landscapes, and wonderful experience have made up for it. However, I have yet to see a kangaroo…
Day 11
We packed. This was a day to pack for our travel to Albury. Other than that, this day wasn’t really active. Mostly hanging out, loading pictures, and eating all the perishable foods.
Day 12
Definitely a high light of the trip, if not my favorite day so far – our one day retreat at the Buddhist temple! We arrived and got started at 9:00 am with tea and registration. After that we had an introduction to the retreat where we met our instructor the Buddhist nun reverend Yo. She was awesome! After our introduction we headed out to the court yard for Tai Chi! It was wonderful and I am excited to practice it more. After that was basic meditation, which I also intend to keep practicing. Then was lunch. We were instructed to eat in silence (most of the retreat was done in silence) and we were also instructed to chew our food 20 times so that we were aware of what we were doing and not letting our minds wander and overwork. A lot of the retreat was about being self aware (as is a lot of the Buddhist belief) and it was a really great experience for me because I tend to think far to much instead of just taking and focusing on what I’m doing. I’m glad I had the experience to open my eyes and “be awake” like the fish. I aim to hold on to what I learned. After lunch we got a tour of the temple and learned more about Buddhism. It was really interesting and very inspiring. We concluded with some deep meditation and a living meditation / feedback session were we learned a little bit more about Buddhism and had opportunity to ask questions. It was a wonderful, life changing experience that I recommend to anybody who’s even remotely interested. In fact, even if you’re not interested I still recommend it!
Friday, June 26, 2009
more notes Sara
Dated:
06/23/09
I’m going to describe the last few days backwards, because that is the way it is easiest for me to remember what all has gone on. Tragically, still no sight of kangaroos.
Today was a great day! Woke up around eight, lazed around the apartments. Dad bought some interesting raisin bread frosted breakfast rolls with a pink frosting so bright that it threatened the retinas. He also picked up some Asiago cheese bread and a few bananas. (We’ve been playing it very, very simple as far as meals go here. But it’s been fun.) So we lounged until about ten, then dressed for the beach and spent five hours there. First, I showed Nick and Dad the tide pools I found yesterday. Each of these small worlds – no bigger than a large mixing bowl – is filled with minute snails, pink plants, and starfish. The starfish are my favorite. They are no larger than a thumbnail, but they are sharp little hunters. They blend in with the moss and plants, then slide atop the innocent passing snails in a single motion. Sometimes they ride the snails around for awhile, then eat them. Other times, they just pull the snails up by their shells right then and there. Keep in mind, I do have some sympathy for the snails. I spent a good hour yesterday flipping over ones that had gotten stuck on their backs. One fellow was so happy to be picked up (and not by a seagull) that he sucked onto my finger. It took me another ten minutes to convince him that a nearby tide pool rock would make a much better lifelong companion than I would.
After tramping the beaches, exploring rocks, tide pools, scaring off seagulls (except for the babies – ridiculous things. They are fully grown seagulls now, but their feathers are still soft and they peep like spring chickens), we lunched at the same outdoor beach joint we ate at last Thursday. Dad ate another beet-pickle hamburger that was still as large as his head; I had some great fish that still tasted like seawater; and Nick had his first taste of couscous (I know. Don’t blame me. He’s been a vegetarian for three years and the poor kid has never yet tasted couscous.) Finally, after psyching up to some music on the beach, Nick and I dove into the sea. That was my goal for today: go under down under. The waves were so high that just a few feet away from us they were cresting over our heads. The salt was incredible. Mostly, people think of salt as a seasoning: something you taste. But for my first five seconds underwater, sat was not only a taste, but also a sound, a smell, a sight, and feeling, and a mindset. Salt became a lifestyle.
I’ve enjoyed watching the huge coal ships come in and out of the harbor. The surfers are also wonderful. I haven’t met one in person yet, but I have a lot of admiration for them. Just standing in the water for a half hour this afternoon, my legs became sore. I can’t imagine the kind of mental and physical endurance it must take to swim against the pounding waves, only to force yourself up on a board and ride the watery beasts.
We finished the day with milkshakes and a good walk back to our apartment. Then – long showers, music, and writing. I love vacations.
If you think we sound like a soft lot of lazy oafs (well, we are, but still) we ought to get some credit for climbing a mountain yesterday. Mount Keira, to be exact: the highest point in Wollongong. After another slow morning, we all took the bus to the university. After asking around, we were directed to a campus janitor who turned out to be a world-traveling mountain climber. The man had been to Machu Pichu, et cetera (yes, that’s right, he et ceteraed world mountains) and is currently training for another peak famous to Australia. (For all of you world mountain climbing experts, I apologize for not having the name. I’m still adapting to quickly muttered words spoken with Crocodile-Dundee-style accents.) Mom headed off to her office, and our new friend walked us to the mountain base. With a few more casual directions and some time warnings (which we stupidly disregarded: keep reading), he set us off on our adventure.
The base of the mountain wasn’t all that different from the types of hills one would find around Minnesota. Thick deciduous trees and a few awkwardly tropical pines, but the same general soft mud and greenery we were used to. I even saw a few deer. (At least, I assumed they were deer. Someone correct me if there are actually no deer on this continent. I might be wrong. They could have been wallabies.) As we climbed, though, the mud turned into an orange-yellow clay and our friendly ferns transformed into towering palms. Vines as thick as trunks broke through the rock walls, and heavy overhanging boughs bore down upon us. Ancient Eucalyptus trees appeared, so thick that the three of us together could not wrap our arms around them. These were the old paths – disappearing, elusive, and dating back to the pre-colonial aboriginals. Partway up, Nick discovered that his ankles were covered in leeches. That’s right; didn’t I mention that there were leeches? I suppose they are something equivalent to Minnesota wood ticks. Also very small, these black, slimy creatures like to bury in the mud and climb up the socks of passersby caught unaware. After an initial shock, Nick yanked them off himself. Dad helped him apply some stinging hand-sanitizer, to keep the bites from bleeding too much. Needless to say, Dad was quite jealous. He now says that was his favorite part of our trip thus far, and he didn’t even catch any himself. I told him to take off his shoes and walk barefoot for awhile. That ought to snag on a couple.
Well, the humidity was so high that it was almost difficult to breath, considering the thickness of the air. We had passed into an officially rainforested area. It was like a scene out of The Jungle Book, complete with tropical bird calls echoing through the air. The most surreal moments were when the trees parted and we could see the ocean. Miles and miles of water, dotted with coal ships. Below us were the widespread and ever shrinking houses. Modernity visible in the middle of the tropical forest.
There was supposed to be a restaurant at the top of the mountain, but it was closed. We should have taken this as our first sign of misfortune (or real adventure, depending on how you view it). But the view from the top was spectacular. All of Wollongong was laid out before us – toy houses, toy ships, toy cars, and twinkling streetlights. Yes, we had triumphed our mountain at sunset. The buttery light sank below the trees behind us and cast the city below into a swirling mist of pinks, oranges, and golds.
We snapped a few pictures and rushed to begin our climb down. With the sun having disappeared far more rapidly than expected, we could not trust ourselves on the elusive, vine-covered, leech-sucking, ankle-deep mud trails that we had taken up. So we stuck to the road. The first few miles were fun. We tried to figure out which of the stars above made up the Southern Cross – a mark specific only to the Southern Hemisphere (equivalent to our North Star). Soon enough though, as sports car after sports car zoomed past us (apparently racing down mountains at dusk in expensive cars is a popular local hobby), and the light grew dim enough for us to lose not only the ditches but ourselves in the liquid dark, our endurance began to wear. Dad lead and Nick and I followed, calling out warnings at the sounds of engines or the formidable glow of oncoming lights. At one point, Dad attempted to flag down a motorcyclist, but the man only flashed his lights and honked for us to get off the road. We couldn’t though. We couldn’t see. And the banks were dotted with four-foot deep drains that had no covers. One mis-step, and we’d be carrying one another down the highway.
But we kept on. The city lights below were both beautiful and discouraging. After seven miles of walking, we finally started to come along houses. I should say, because it is winter here, the sun sets around 5:30 p.m. By the time we found these houses, it was only 6:30. Thus, it was not unusual for Dad to stop an evening dog-walker and ask for directions. With great relief, we were informed that the top of Crown Street (a main street in town that we are familiar with) was only a twenty minute’s walk away. With that hope, we kept on. Meeting increasingly common intersections until, at last, we reached roundabouts, bus ramps, and streetlights. We had touched base.
From the top of Crown, it was only another twenty or so minutes home. On the way, we stopped to ask for directions once more from a gentle, scholarly looking man with extraordinarily thin lips at a bus stop. Only yards later, we were stopped by what appeared to be a toothless ex-clown, who cursed us for not having cigarettes (seriously, as we walked away, he did a “Booo!” That was EXACTLY like the “Booo!” from the old woman in the movie “The Princess Bride.” Go ahead, call me crazy, but some of you know what I’m talking about). We walked past one druggist’s that was labeled “The Cheapest Druggist in Wollongong!” and one right next to it was one labeled “The General Druggists: Cheaper than the Cheapest Druggist in Wollongong!”
It was an unusual night.
By the time we got home, we were all worn out, but we agreed that it was a fantastic adventure. We snacked on some soup and sandwiches and went to bed early. Huzzah! But we had conquered out mountain. The same mountain is directly visible off of our balcony. What a wonderful way to wake up this morning, and see what we had accomplished in climbing!
Sunday was unusually fun. We all woke up early and went to church at the local Wesley Uniting Church: Mission on the Mall. Here in Australia, several of the mainline Christian churches, including the Methodists, combined powers to form the Uniting church about a decade ago. The preacher at Wesley was a former Methodist himself. The entire experience was uncannily like that described by Eddie Izzard in his bit about the Anglican church. The pastor gave a comedically relaxed sermon, tossing in statements like “so we thought we’d give it a bit of a go,” and, “nipped on down.” He didn’t have any notes, so he just casually mixed together a thousand points and stories about his wife’s art books, his first sailboarding experience, Christmas vacation last year, a near car wreck they survived, and so on. At one point, he pulled out a book about literalist vs. metaphorical translations of the gospels and read a couple of pages directly to us. At another point, he asked us what some of our most traumatic events had been in life, saying, “Now I don’t want to throw you into flashbacks and make you leave to church, but anybody want to share? Harriet? Tom?” Then he wandered out into the congregation and handed the microphone to various church members.
Actually, it was one of the best sermons I have ever heard. I still don’t entirely know what the conclusion was, but, ultimately, God loves us, life is short (and not ours to claim), we are all part of something bigger, and not everything has to be understood literally – our external and internal impressions do not have to be the same thing. He was a wonderful person, too. And he asked Dad if he wanted to guest preach next week. Dad may well end up reading the gospel lesson, at some rate. I think he ought to “give it a bit of a go.” So, we’ll see. I secretly think it depends on whether or not his beard has grown in all the way yet. Right now, he’s still at a scruffy phase, and well suitable for vacation, that might give the wrong impression about unkempt American Methodist Pastors if he got up and spoke like this.
After the fantastic church experience, we did some casual souvenir shopping at the city center and ate lunch at a cute outdoor Mediterranean restaurant. We were served by the owner, who had a broken finger. (“Look at it! I ‘it it on the table in there a few weeks ago and it just bent up tha’ way! Isn’t it ugly, tho’?” Wonderfully friendly. Wollongong has a good number of very kindhearted, friendly people. I met some of them on the beach. Just for the record.) Afterward, we went to see a positively bizarre display at the Wollongong City Museum. We thought we would be looking at some cutesy local impressionist beach paintings or maybe a few aboriginal carvings, but we ended up viewing a few paintings and sculptures that were so unusual, they put half of the Minneapolis Walker to shame. I’d go into further detail, but I don’t believe I physically can. Instead, we’ll just say that you all have to come down here and see it for yourself, if curiosity so drives you.
Well, I daresay that is all I have for now. Tomorrow should also be good, though. We’re looking to hop a train to Sydney and check out the famous Bondi Beach. They have shark nets there! Adventures to come indeed. Until then, I am exhausted. Goodnight, ladies, gentlemen, both, neither, and others! I love you all. Sleep tight, and I’ll catch you when I can.
--- Sara Ann
06/23/09
I’m going to describe the last few days backwards, because that is the way it is easiest for me to remember what all has gone on. Tragically, still no sight of kangaroos.
Today was a great day! Woke up around eight, lazed around the apartments. Dad bought some interesting raisin bread frosted breakfast rolls with a pink frosting so bright that it threatened the retinas. He also picked up some Asiago cheese bread and a few bananas. (We’ve been playing it very, very simple as far as meals go here. But it’s been fun.) So we lounged until about ten, then dressed for the beach and spent five hours there. First, I showed Nick and Dad the tide pools I found yesterday. Each of these small worlds – no bigger than a large mixing bowl – is filled with minute snails, pink plants, and starfish. The starfish are my favorite. They are no larger than a thumbnail, but they are sharp little hunters. They blend in with the moss and plants, then slide atop the innocent passing snails in a single motion. Sometimes they ride the snails around for awhile, then eat them. Other times, they just pull the snails up by their shells right then and there. Keep in mind, I do have some sympathy for the snails. I spent a good hour yesterday flipping over ones that had gotten stuck on their backs. One fellow was so happy to be picked up (and not by a seagull) that he sucked onto my finger. It took me another ten minutes to convince him that a nearby tide pool rock would make a much better lifelong companion than I would.
After tramping the beaches, exploring rocks, tide pools, scaring off seagulls (except for the babies – ridiculous things. They are fully grown seagulls now, but their feathers are still soft and they peep like spring chickens), we lunched at the same outdoor beach joint we ate at last Thursday. Dad ate another beet-pickle hamburger that was still as large as his head; I had some great fish that still tasted like seawater; and Nick had his first taste of couscous (I know. Don’t blame me. He’s been a vegetarian for three years and the poor kid has never yet tasted couscous.) Finally, after psyching up to some music on the beach, Nick and I dove into the sea. That was my goal for today: go under down under. The waves were so high that just a few feet away from us they were cresting over our heads. The salt was incredible. Mostly, people think of salt as a seasoning: something you taste. But for my first five seconds underwater, sat was not only a taste, but also a sound, a smell, a sight, and feeling, and a mindset. Salt became a lifestyle.
I’ve enjoyed watching the huge coal ships come in and out of the harbor. The surfers are also wonderful. I haven’t met one in person yet, but I have a lot of admiration for them. Just standing in the water for a half hour this afternoon, my legs became sore. I can’t imagine the kind of mental and physical endurance it must take to swim against the pounding waves, only to force yourself up on a board and ride the watery beasts.
We finished the day with milkshakes and a good walk back to our apartment. Then – long showers, music, and writing. I love vacations.
If you think we sound like a soft lot of lazy oafs (well, we are, but still) we ought to get some credit for climbing a mountain yesterday. Mount Keira, to be exact: the highest point in Wollongong. After another slow morning, we all took the bus to the university. After asking around, we were directed to a campus janitor who turned out to be a world-traveling mountain climber. The man had been to Machu Pichu, et cetera (yes, that’s right, he et ceteraed world mountains) and is currently training for another peak famous to Australia. (For all of you world mountain climbing experts, I apologize for not having the name. I’m still adapting to quickly muttered words spoken with Crocodile-Dundee-style accents.) Mom headed off to her office, and our new friend walked us to the mountain base. With a few more casual directions and some time warnings (which we stupidly disregarded: keep reading), he set us off on our adventure.
The base of the mountain wasn’t all that different from the types of hills one would find around Minnesota. Thick deciduous trees and a few awkwardly tropical pines, but the same general soft mud and greenery we were used to. I even saw a few deer. (At least, I assumed they were deer. Someone correct me if there are actually no deer on this continent. I might be wrong. They could have been wallabies.) As we climbed, though, the mud turned into an orange-yellow clay and our friendly ferns transformed into towering palms. Vines as thick as trunks broke through the rock walls, and heavy overhanging boughs bore down upon us. Ancient Eucalyptus trees appeared, so thick that the three of us together could not wrap our arms around them. These were the old paths – disappearing, elusive, and dating back to the pre-colonial aboriginals. Partway up, Nick discovered that his ankles were covered in leeches. That’s right; didn’t I mention that there were leeches? I suppose they are something equivalent to Minnesota wood ticks. Also very small, these black, slimy creatures like to bury in the mud and climb up the socks of passersby caught unaware. After an initial shock, Nick yanked them off himself. Dad helped him apply some stinging hand-sanitizer, to keep the bites from bleeding too much. Needless to say, Dad was quite jealous. He now says that was his favorite part of our trip thus far, and he didn’t even catch any himself. I told him to take off his shoes and walk barefoot for awhile. That ought to snag on a couple.
Well, the humidity was so high that it was almost difficult to breath, considering the thickness of the air. We had passed into an officially rainforested area. It was like a scene out of The Jungle Book, complete with tropical bird calls echoing through the air. The most surreal moments were when the trees parted and we could see the ocean. Miles and miles of water, dotted with coal ships. Below us were the widespread and ever shrinking houses. Modernity visible in the middle of the tropical forest.
There was supposed to be a restaurant at the top of the mountain, but it was closed. We should have taken this as our first sign of misfortune (or real adventure, depending on how you view it). But the view from the top was spectacular. All of Wollongong was laid out before us – toy houses, toy ships, toy cars, and twinkling streetlights. Yes, we had triumphed our mountain at sunset. The buttery light sank below the trees behind us and cast the city below into a swirling mist of pinks, oranges, and golds.
We snapped a few pictures and rushed to begin our climb down. With the sun having disappeared far more rapidly than expected, we could not trust ourselves on the elusive, vine-covered, leech-sucking, ankle-deep mud trails that we had taken up. So we stuck to the road. The first few miles were fun. We tried to figure out which of the stars above made up the Southern Cross – a mark specific only to the Southern Hemisphere (equivalent to our North Star). Soon enough though, as sports car after sports car zoomed past us (apparently racing down mountains at dusk in expensive cars is a popular local hobby), and the light grew dim enough for us to lose not only the ditches but ourselves in the liquid dark, our endurance began to wear. Dad lead and Nick and I followed, calling out warnings at the sounds of engines or the formidable glow of oncoming lights. At one point, Dad attempted to flag down a motorcyclist, but the man only flashed his lights and honked for us to get off the road. We couldn’t though. We couldn’t see. And the banks were dotted with four-foot deep drains that had no covers. One mis-step, and we’d be carrying one another down the highway.
But we kept on. The city lights below were both beautiful and discouraging. After seven miles of walking, we finally started to come along houses. I should say, because it is winter here, the sun sets around 5:30 p.m. By the time we found these houses, it was only 6:30. Thus, it was not unusual for Dad to stop an evening dog-walker and ask for directions. With great relief, we were informed that the top of Crown Street (a main street in town that we are familiar with) was only a twenty minute’s walk away. With that hope, we kept on. Meeting increasingly common intersections until, at last, we reached roundabouts, bus ramps, and streetlights. We had touched base.
From the top of Crown, it was only another twenty or so minutes home. On the way, we stopped to ask for directions once more from a gentle, scholarly looking man with extraordinarily thin lips at a bus stop. Only yards later, we were stopped by what appeared to be a toothless ex-clown, who cursed us for not having cigarettes (seriously, as we walked away, he did a “Booo!” That was EXACTLY like the “Booo!” from the old woman in the movie “The Princess Bride.” Go ahead, call me crazy, but some of you know what I’m talking about). We walked past one druggist’s that was labeled “The Cheapest Druggist in Wollongong!” and one right next to it was one labeled “The General Druggists: Cheaper than the Cheapest Druggist in Wollongong!”
It was an unusual night.
By the time we got home, we were all worn out, but we agreed that it was a fantastic adventure. We snacked on some soup and sandwiches and went to bed early. Huzzah! But we had conquered out mountain. The same mountain is directly visible off of our balcony. What a wonderful way to wake up this morning, and see what we had accomplished in climbing!
Sunday was unusually fun. We all woke up early and went to church at the local Wesley Uniting Church: Mission on the Mall. Here in Australia, several of the mainline Christian churches, including the Methodists, combined powers to form the Uniting church about a decade ago. The preacher at Wesley was a former Methodist himself. The entire experience was uncannily like that described by Eddie Izzard in his bit about the Anglican church. The pastor gave a comedically relaxed sermon, tossing in statements like “so we thought we’d give it a bit of a go,” and, “nipped on down.” He didn’t have any notes, so he just casually mixed together a thousand points and stories about his wife’s art books, his first sailboarding experience, Christmas vacation last year, a near car wreck they survived, and so on. At one point, he pulled out a book about literalist vs. metaphorical translations of the gospels and read a couple of pages directly to us. At another point, he asked us what some of our most traumatic events had been in life, saying, “Now I don’t want to throw you into flashbacks and make you leave to church, but anybody want to share? Harriet? Tom?” Then he wandered out into the congregation and handed the microphone to various church members.
Actually, it was one of the best sermons I have ever heard. I still don’t entirely know what the conclusion was, but, ultimately, God loves us, life is short (and not ours to claim), we are all part of something bigger, and not everything has to be understood literally – our external and internal impressions do not have to be the same thing. He was a wonderful person, too. And he asked Dad if he wanted to guest preach next week. Dad may well end up reading the gospel lesson, at some rate. I think he ought to “give it a bit of a go.” So, we’ll see. I secretly think it depends on whether or not his beard has grown in all the way yet. Right now, he’s still at a scruffy phase, and well suitable for vacation, that might give the wrong impression about unkempt American Methodist Pastors if he got up and spoke like this.
After the fantastic church experience, we did some casual souvenir shopping at the city center and ate lunch at a cute outdoor Mediterranean restaurant. We were served by the owner, who had a broken finger. (“Look at it! I ‘it it on the table in there a few weeks ago and it just bent up tha’ way! Isn’t it ugly, tho’?” Wonderfully friendly. Wollongong has a good number of very kindhearted, friendly people. I met some of them on the beach. Just for the record.) Afterward, we went to see a positively bizarre display at the Wollongong City Museum. We thought we would be looking at some cutesy local impressionist beach paintings or maybe a few aboriginal carvings, but we ended up viewing a few paintings and sculptures that were so unusual, they put half of the Minneapolis Walker to shame. I’d go into further detail, but I don’t believe I physically can. Instead, we’ll just say that you all have to come down here and see it for yourself, if curiosity so drives you.
Well, I daresay that is all I have for now. Tomorrow should also be good, though. We’re looking to hop a train to Sydney and check out the famous Bondi Beach. They have shark nets there! Adventures to come indeed. Until then, I am exhausted. Goodnight, ladies, gentlemen, both, neither, and others! I love you all. Sleep tight, and I’ll catch you when I can.
--- Sara Ann
From Sara
I aplogize to facebook WHO WILL GET THIS TWICE
/26/09
Wednesday we took the train up to Sydney. What a trip! For one thing, we met all sorts of interesting characters. There was a boy on the train who had walked all the way through the bottoms of his Ugg boots, so they were just stirruped under his soles by two think scraps of leather. He might have had Tourette's Disorder because of the way he kept clapping his hands and stomping one foot, but all in all he was mostly out looking for trouble. He systematically went down the list of rules posted on the wall and broke everyone of them – from lighting a cigarette to putting his feet on the seat and spitting on the floor. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I met an old woman who was so small, she looked like a walnut that someone had dressed up and glued googly-eyes to. She was going up to Sydney to visit her daughter, and was extraordinarily enthusiastic about the trip.
We got off in Sydney at an enormous shopping center called Bondi Junction. I have never seen so many shoes in my life. Everything was noise, noise, noise, motion, color, and half off. I bought a large wraparound scarf there (maroon and black, soft, warm, pretty, half off), and Nick got a bandana with the Australian flag on it. We both made our purchases at a place called “The Bargain Kings Store.” The owner was a real hoot – this old man who gave us a tour of the whole place. He was especially keen on selling us some of his severed kangaroo foot backscratchers, only 35 dollars. (Tragically, we turned him down.) He also adopted Nick, unawares, showing him his special animal skins collection and slyly telling him which of the clubs down the street had belly dancers on Wednesday nights.
Eventually we ended up at Bondi Beach, one of the largest and most famous beaches in the world. We got lost walking there, and so didn’t arrive until sunset (which, here, starts at four o’clock in the afternoon). The water was too cold to swim, but we had a good time wading and watching the parents and children build sandcastles. The children were especially fun to watch splashing along the shore. I think seashells double in splendor when being celebrated in the hands of a dancing four-year-old.
The train ride back was quiet. Dad ate pizza while Nick and I read. The only unusual thing there, was that at every small town stop we picked up more and more Barbie-doll college girls going up to the clubs at Wollongong. I have never seen so many short, glittering skirts, tan legs, and hairsprayed mountains of blonde in my life. Apparently Wednesdays are a big club night here. No explanations, just sequins.
Yesterday, Dad, Nick and I all took a bus up to the Nan Tien Mahayana Buddhist Temple. It is the largest Buddhist temple in the Southern hemisphere, and it is just outside of Wollongong. We went in to see if we could register in person for a day of meditation tomorrow (Saturday). Initially, they hadn’t had room because people must register ahead of time, but it turns out space opened up. While Dad sorted out the paper work, Nick and I admired the great garden work surrounding the temple base. The temple had two main parts with different décor, shining golden Buddha statues, and different offerings of fruit, light, and incense. One was above the other, with a large staircase connecting them, and a beautifully gardened courtyard in between. At each temple entrance was a large sand pot with a single stick of incense burning at the center. Rows of abandoned shoes – some neatly removed, some eagerly tossed into heaps – completed the decorations at the doors.
The three of us did some other exploring on the grounds – walking along several of the well-groomed trails, admiring the red berries and brilliant purple flowers that bloom during the winters here. The effect of these colors was surreal when set against a background of autumnal golden leaves from the fading willows. A pond full of circling carp was surrounded by dried lotuses, with benches scattered openly for those who desired a moment of rest or meditation. A shave-headed monk in flowing orange robes meditated over each scrap of bread as he threw it to the pond ducks below.
We lunched at the vegetarian café. The meals served there are some of the healthiest meals possible, cooked specifically to encourage longevity and honor the heart. I don’t believe I have ever eaten better. We were each served heaping trays of food which none of us could finish – noodles, breaded mushrooms, sautéed broccoli, rice, browned tofu rolls that tasted like sausage, and other deliciously mixed vegetables. For dessert, a single slice of apple soaked in pear and lemon juice.
After lunch we visited the gift shop and museum, looking up our Chinese Zodiacs, paging through books of wisdom, and learning much about the different kinds of Buddhism by the inscriptions under paintings and statues. One especially fascinating exhibit was the Hall of Mirrors, which reflected hundreds of Buddha statues, all based on an arrangement of mirrors around four larger Buddha statues. The interesting thing was that no visitor standing in front of these Buddhas could be similarly reflected. Somehow, the mirrors only reflected these golden Buddhas. Another supremely curious exhibit centered around a collection of practically invisible tablets that had been created out of human hair and eggshell. Upon peering through an intense magnifying glass, however, one could read the smallest of inscriptions and see extraordinarily detailed little paintings – all completely invisible to the naked eye.
We concluded our visit with a climb up the steep steps toward the pagoda, where the monks bury their dead. We did not go inside, but a glance inside revealed more crimson and gold statuary, hazy with incense, and flickering candles illuminating visitors kneeling in prayer and meditation. Thousands of smaller golden Buddhas each held their own niches in the honeycomb-like walls.
I cannot begin to describe how excited am I to spend an entire day there tomorrow.
-- Sara Ann
/26/09
Wednesday we took the train up to Sydney. What a trip! For one thing, we met all sorts of interesting characters. There was a boy on the train who had walked all the way through the bottoms of his Ugg boots, so they were just stirruped under his soles by two think scraps of leather. He might have had Tourette's Disorder because of the way he kept clapping his hands and stomping one foot, but all in all he was mostly out looking for trouble. He systematically went down the list of rules posted on the wall and broke everyone of them – from lighting a cigarette to putting his feet on the seat and spitting on the floor. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I met an old woman who was so small, she looked like a walnut that someone had dressed up and glued googly-eyes to. She was going up to Sydney to visit her daughter, and was extraordinarily enthusiastic about the trip.
We got off in Sydney at an enormous shopping center called Bondi Junction. I have never seen so many shoes in my life. Everything was noise, noise, noise, motion, color, and half off. I bought a large wraparound scarf there (maroon and black, soft, warm, pretty, half off), and Nick got a bandana with the Australian flag on it. We both made our purchases at a place called “The Bargain Kings Store.” The owner was a real hoot – this old man who gave us a tour of the whole place. He was especially keen on selling us some of his severed kangaroo foot backscratchers, only 35 dollars. (Tragically, we turned him down.) He also adopted Nick, unawares, showing him his special animal skins collection and slyly telling him which of the clubs down the street had belly dancers on Wednesday nights.
Eventually we ended up at Bondi Beach, one of the largest and most famous beaches in the world. We got lost walking there, and so didn’t arrive until sunset (which, here, starts at four o’clock in the afternoon). The water was too cold to swim, but we had a good time wading and watching the parents and children build sandcastles. The children were especially fun to watch splashing along the shore. I think seashells double in splendor when being celebrated in the hands of a dancing four-year-old.
The train ride back was quiet. Dad ate pizza while Nick and I read. The only unusual thing there, was that at every small town stop we picked up more and more Barbie-doll college girls going up to the clubs at Wollongong. I have never seen so many short, glittering skirts, tan legs, and hairsprayed mountains of blonde in my life. Apparently Wednesdays are a big club night here. No explanations, just sequins.
Yesterday, Dad, Nick and I all took a bus up to the Nan Tien Mahayana Buddhist Temple. It is the largest Buddhist temple in the Southern hemisphere, and it is just outside of Wollongong. We went in to see if we could register in person for a day of meditation tomorrow (Saturday). Initially, they hadn’t had room because people must register ahead of time, but it turns out space opened up. While Dad sorted out the paper work, Nick and I admired the great garden work surrounding the temple base. The temple had two main parts with different décor, shining golden Buddha statues, and different offerings of fruit, light, and incense. One was above the other, with a large staircase connecting them, and a beautifully gardened courtyard in between. At each temple entrance was a large sand pot with a single stick of incense burning at the center. Rows of abandoned shoes – some neatly removed, some eagerly tossed into heaps – completed the decorations at the doors.
The three of us did some other exploring on the grounds – walking along several of the well-groomed trails, admiring the red berries and brilliant purple flowers that bloom during the winters here. The effect of these colors was surreal when set against a background of autumnal golden leaves from the fading willows. A pond full of circling carp was surrounded by dried lotuses, with benches scattered openly for those who desired a moment of rest or meditation. A shave-headed monk in flowing orange robes meditated over each scrap of bread as he threw it to the pond ducks below.
We lunched at the vegetarian café. The meals served there are some of the healthiest meals possible, cooked specifically to encourage longevity and honor the heart. I don’t believe I have ever eaten better. We were each served heaping trays of food which none of us could finish – noodles, breaded mushrooms, sautéed broccoli, rice, browned tofu rolls that tasted like sausage, and other deliciously mixed vegetables. For dessert, a single slice of apple soaked in pear and lemon juice.
After lunch we visited the gift shop and museum, looking up our Chinese Zodiacs, paging through books of wisdom, and learning much about the different kinds of Buddhism by the inscriptions under paintings and statues. One especially fascinating exhibit was the Hall of Mirrors, which reflected hundreds of Buddha statues, all based on an arrangement of mirrors around four larger Buddha statues. The interesting thing was that no visitor standing in front of these Buddhas could be similarly reflected. Somehow, the mirrors only reflected these golden Buddhas. Another supremely curious exhibit centered around a collection of practically invisible tablets that had been created out of human hair and eggshell. Upon peering through an intense magnifying glass, however, one could read the smallest of inscriptions and see extraordinarily detailed little paintings – all completely invisible to the naked eye.
We concluded our visit with a climb up the steep steps toward the pagoda, where the monks bury their dead. We did not go inside, but a glance inside revealed more crimson and gold statuary, hazy with incense, and flickering candles illuminating visitors kneeling in prayer and meditation. Thousands of smaller golden Buddhas each held their own niches in the honeycomb-like walls.
I cannot begin to describe how excited am I to spend an entire day there tomorrow.
-- Sara Ann
Thinking about the "universal" health care coverage in Australia;
Charity is commendable; everyone should be charitable. But justice aims to create a social order in which, if individuals choose not to be charitable, people still don’t go hungry, unschooled, or sick without care.
- Bill Moyers,
television journalist and social commentator
FROM Sojourners Verse and Voice
Charity is commendable; everyone should be charitable. But justice aims to create a social order in which, if individuals choose not to be charitable, people still don’t go hungry, unschooled, or sick without care.
- Bill Moyers,
television journalist and social commentator
FROM Sojourners Verse and Voice
Thursday, June 25, 2009
In a few weeks we go to Hobart; Tasmania, here is wikipedia note on some tragic history
The Tasmanian Aborigines ( Aboriginal name: Palawa) are the indigenous people of the island state of Tasmania, Australia.
During 1803–33, the population of the Tasmanian Aborigines was reduced from an estimate of around 5,000 to a few hundred, as a result of the ethnic conflict called the Black War, one of the first documented modern genocides. The few survivors were kept in a camp on Flinders Island, where disease and neglect reduced their numbers even further until one of the last of the full blooded Palawa, a woman called Trugernanner (often rendered as Truganini), died in 1876.[1]
All of the Indigenous Tasmanian languages have been lost. Currently there are some efforts to reconstruct one of the languages from the available wordlists. Today, some people can trace a small part of their ancestry to the Palawa, since a small number of Palawa women were taken into slavery and bore children. Those members of the modern-day descendant community who claim ancestry to Tasmanian Aborigines have mostly European ancestry, and did not keep the traditional Palawa culture.
The Tasmanian Aborigines ( Aboriginal name: Palawa) are the indigenous people of the island state of Tasmania, Australia.
During 1803–33, the population of the Tasmanian Aborigines was reduced from an estimate of around 5,000 to a few hundred, as a result of the ethnic conflict called the Black War, one of the first documented modern genocides. The few survivors were kept in a camp on Flinders Island, where disease and neglect reduced their numbers even further until one of the last of the full blooded Palawa, a woman called Trugernanner (often rendered as Truganini), died in 1876.[1]
All of the Indigenous Tasmanian languages have been lost. Currently there are some efforts to reconstruct one of the languages from the available wordlists. Today, some people can trace a small part of their ancestry to the Palawa, since a small number of Palawa women were taken into slavery and bore children. Those members of the modern-day descendant community who claim ancestry to Tasmanian Aborigines have mostly European ancestry, and did not keep the traditional Palawa culture.
Another day
Got up around 6 and am now enjoying the computer time while others are still sleeping. Sara has not been able to use her computer because Vista OS doesn't work as well with the server here. And we have to take turns with the three adapters we have, between computers and other electrical gadgets.
Yesterday Nick, Sara and I had no trouble catching a bus to the Nan Tien temple. Very impressive. It seems to be a popular attraction with tourist groups as well. I will try to copy a web picture into this post. We all needed a day with less walking so I enjoyed not waking up with a hobbling stiffness! Today we also plan an easier day, going out to the "Uni" to look around. Beth is renting a car. Sat. we will be at the temple for the retreat day and Sunday we head to another town inland, Albury, where Beth is attending a three day conference. Sara and Nick still have not had time to transfer pictures. Other than that: went to a movie, did luandry, Beth and the kids did a late evening stroll to the beach.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Slept until 6 AM this morning! We might do less walking today. I will stroll to the Woolworths grocery store for some breakfast items. Ive already had my "plunger" coffee. We have some paperwork that needs to get in to Nan Tien temple so we might figure out the bus for that venture. It is in a suburb of Wollongong.
a quote for the day..from Spirituality and Practice.
I try always to look upon the world and the people I meet as echoes of my spirit. I know that if I am speaking with deceit, deceit will be echoed back to me . . . Likewise, if I find that I am constantly cheerful, full of brightness and hope, or deeply contemplative in the presence of a particular person, I know I am in the presence of a gracious spirit, and I am echoing the gift that is being given to me. It is as if the lesson of the echo contains the secret to understanding the space between us all.
— Kent Nerburn in Small Graces
Maybe that thought could also be symbolized with the boomerang...as in "things come back to you"
What goes around ...comes around...
what you sow..you reap...
rambling inthe pre-dawn shadows of the day
a quote for the day..from Spirituality and Practice.
I try always to look upon the world and the people I meet as echoes of my spirit. I know that if I am speaking with deceit, deceit will be echoed back to me . . . Likewise, if I find that I am constantly cheerful, full of brightness and hope, or deeply contemplative in the presence of a particular person, I know I am in the presence of a gracious spirit, and I am echoing the gift that is being given to me. It is as if the lesson of the echo contains the secret to understanding the space between us all.
— Kent Nerburn in Small Graces
Maybe that thought could also be symbolized with the boomerang...as in "things come back to you"
What goes around ...comes around...
what you sow..you reap...
rambling inthe pre-dawn shadows of the day
Updates according to Nick
reprints from Nick's facebook:Day 7!!!
Work out day. Sara, Dad and I hiked a total of 12 miles up and down Mt. Keira. It was GORGEOUS! It was a very rainforest type environment with odd but beautiful plants and birds. The view from the top was one of the most astounding things I have ever seen! I also made friends with three leeches, two of which I found attached to my ankle about half way up the mountain. As I pulled them off, Sara and Dad searched to see if they had made friends as well but had no such luck. My dad was very jealous of my leech battling experience. We did, however, get lost on the way back down and ended up following the street all the way back to the hostel. Though, that did give us a great opportunity to scope out and admire the Southern Cross as well as the rest of the Australian night sky. After we returned home, it was straight to the showers and then SLEEP!!! We were all very sore the next day.
Day 8
A day at the beach! Despite our sore legs, we ventured out to explore the salty ocean. More shells were collected, but the highlight of this was submerging ourselves in the water as we crashed around in the waves. Well, at least Sara and I did. It was a lot of fun. We also had shakes…but they aren’t like the US shakes at all….they’re much less thick and have a slightly different taste…very odd.
Day 9
Adventure to Sydney! Sara, Dad and I hopped a train to Sydney to explore the mall and the beach. It was a much more touristy area. We again got a lot of exercise from walking long distances (Sara wouldn’t let us take the bus). Dad's pedometer measured ten miles! So… I’m really tired. This will be a short post also because we will be back to Sydney. I have to send thanks to anyone who’s lent or given me a book lately, because I’ve been doing a lot of reading in my free time. I’ve had a lot of inspirational characters to keep me company. Good stuff! Thanks!
Work out day. Sara, Dad and I hiked a total of 12 miles up and down Mt. Keira. It was GORGEOUS! It was a very rainforest type environment with odd but beautiful plants and birds. The view from the top was one of the most astounding things I have ever seen! I also made friends with three leeches, two of which I found attached to my ankle about half way up the mountain. As I pulled them off, Sara and Dad searched to see if they had made friends as well but had no such luck. My dad was very jealous of my leech battling experience. We did, however, get lost on the way back down and ended up following the street all the way back to the hostel. Though, that did give us a great opportunity to scope out and admire the Southern Cross as well as the rest of the Australian night sky. After we returned home, it was straight to the showers and then SLEEP!!! We were all very sore the next day.
Day 8
A day at the beach! Despite our sore legs, we ventured out to explore the salty ocean. More shells were collected, but the highlight of this was submerging ourselves in the water as we crashed around in the waves. Well, at least Sara and I did. It was a lot of fun. We also had shakes…but they aren’t like the US shakes at all….they’re much less thick and have a slightly different taste…very odd.
Day 9
Adventure to Sydney! Sara, Dad and I hopped a train to Sydney to explore the mall and the beach. It was a much more touristy area. We again got a lot of exercise from walking long distances (Sara wouldn’t let us take the bus). Dad's pedometer measured ten miles! So… I’m really tired. This will be a short post also because we will be back to Sydney. I have to send thanks to anyone who’s lent or given me a book lately, because I’ve been doing a lot of reading in my free time. I’ve had a lot of inspirational characters to keep me company. Good stuff! Thanks!
Monday, June 22, 2009
The following quote later in the post is a direct copy from the Saturday inward/outward post.
I thought of it as I am here on "renewal leave" thinking at least, about slowing down.
I also thought of it last night. We had started late in the day , 2:15 PM, for the bush wlak to Keira Mt. The trail was rocky, wet, slippery, often dark because of the dense tree cover, steep, not always easy to find. I kept tellign Nick and Sara to step carefully and deliberatley ..go slow! The views were all that we had imagined and more. It was 5 pm when we made the summt. But the return trip would have caught us at dusk or even in the dark on the trail so I opted for a return hike by follwing the road back into town. It would be much much longer and we did not know how it would return us to the city but a marked road is better than an unknown trail for times like this. We walked in the "winter" dark , able to see the stars and still not sure of how to pick out the southern cross! This time I was telling the kids to step up the pace because the road was narrow with no shoulders and I had no idea of how long this walk would take. We could see the city lights spreading out far below us. I only knew the road was winding down , and we were dropping altitude. It eventualy took us back to a road that even had street lights and we found that we were on Mt Keira road. I found some one to tell us where we were and that in another 2o minutes we would come to Crown Street. Crown Street I knew, would take us to the mall near our apt! Still another twenty minutes on Crown street put us home, but as soon as we knew we were on a route that would get us to the destination, our comfort returned, spirits relaxed, to "a beautiful night for a walk." It does help to know that you are traveling a path that will not lead you wrong. It's just a matter of walking out the distance. Then slow down, and enjoy the journey. As I said, to Nick and Sara, we probably would be out for a walk anyway, what else was there to do!
..now the quote from BBT:
By Barbara Brown Taylor
For years I had kept hoping that intimacy with God would blossom as soon as I got everything done, got everyone settled, got my environment just right and my calendar cleared. I counted on it to come as a reward for how hard I had worked, or at least as the built-in consequence of a life of service, but even when I managed to meet all of my conditions for a day or two, I was so exhausted from the effort that I could not keep my eyes open. Slumber spirituality took over, and when I woke up I was right back where I started with miles to go toward the home I never quite reached.
Soon after I moved to the country, a friend from the city set out to see me and got seriously lost. These were the days before cell phones, so she was on her own with nothing but my directions and a badly out-of-date map. Already an hour later than she wanted to be, she was speeding through a little town when she saw the blue lights in her rearview mirror. I forgot to warn her that it was a speed trap. Busted, she pulled over on the shoulder of the road and had her license ready when the officer arrived at her window.
“I am so sorry,” she said, handing it to him along with her registration. “I know I was speeding, but I’ve been lost for the last forty minutes and I cannot find Tower Terrace anywhere on this map.”
“Well, I’m sorry about that too, ma’am,” he said, writing up her citation, “but what made you think that hurrying would help you find your way?”
What made any of us think that the place we are trying to reach is far, far ahead of us somewhere and that the only way to get there is to run until we drop? For Christians, at least part of the answer is that many of us have been taught to think of God’s kingdom as something outside ourselves, for which we must search as a merchant searches for the pearl of great price.
But even that points to a larger and more enduring human problem, which is the problem of mortality. With a limited number of years to do whatever it is that we are supposed to be doing here, who has time to stop?
Barbara Brown Taylor is a writer and teacher at Piedmont College in Georgia. She was ordained an Episcopal priest and writes about the life of the church—and the church of life. This excerpt is from her book called Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith.
Truly Rambling on
Rory
I thought of it as I am here on "renewal leave" thinking at least, about slowing down.
I also thought of it last night. We had started late in the day , 2:15 PM, for the bush wlak to Keira Mt. The trail was rocky, wet, slippery, often dark because of the dense tree cover, steep, not always easy to find. I kept tellign Nick and Sara to step carefully and deliberatley ..go slow! The views were all that we had imagined and more. It was 5 pm when we made the summt. But the return trip would have caught us at dusk or even in the dark on the trail so I opted for a return hike by follwing the road back into town. It would be much much longer and we did not know how it would return us to the city but a marked road is better than an unknown trail for times like this. We walked in the "winter" dark , able to see the stars and still not sure of how to pick out the southern cross! This time I was telling the kids to step up the pace because the road was narrow with no shoulders and I had no idea of how long this walk would take. We could see the city lights spreading out far below us. I only knew the road was winding down , and we were dropping altitude. It eventualy took us back to a road that even had street lights and we found that we were on Mt Keira road. I found some one to tell us where we were and that in another 2o minutes we would come to Crown Street. Crown Street I knew, would take us to the mall near our apt! Still another twenty minutes on Crown street put us home, but as soon as we knew we were on a route that would get us to the destination, our comfort returned, spirits relaxed, to "a beautiful night for a walk." It does help to know that you are traveling a path that will not lead you wrong. It's just a matter of walking out the distance. Then slow down, and enjoy the journey. As I said, to Nick and Sara, we probably would be out for a walk anyway, what else was there to do!
..now the quote from BBT:
By Barbara Brown Taylor
For years I had kept hoping that intimacy with God would blossom as soon as I got everything done, got everyone settled, got my environment just right and my calendar cleared. I counted on it to come as a reward for how hard I had worked, or at least as the built-in consequence of a life of service, but even when I managed to meet all of my conditions for a day or two, I was so exhausted from the effort that I could not keep my eyes open. Slumber spirituality took over, and when I woke up I was right back where I started with miles to go toward the home I never quite reached.
Soon after I moved to the country, a friend from the city set out to see me and got seriously lost. These were the days before cell phones, so she was on her own with nothing but my directions and a badly out-of-date map. Already an hour later than she wanted to be, she was speeding through a little town when she saw the blue lights in her rearview mirror. I forgot to warn her that it was a speed trap. Busted, she pulled over on the shoulder of the road and had her license ready when the officer arrived at her window.
“I am so sorry,” she said, handing it to him along with her registration. “I know I was speeding, but I’ve been lost for the last forty minutes and I cannot find Tower Terrace anywhere on this map.”
“Well, I’m sorry about that too, ma’am,” he said, writing up her citation, “but what made you think that hurrying would help you find your way?”
What made any of us think that the place we are trying to reach is far, far ahead of us somewhere and that the only way to get there is to run until we drop? For Christians, at least part of the answer is that many of us have been taught to think of God’s kingdom as something outside ourselves, for which we must search as a merchant searches for the pearl of great price.
But even that points to a larger and more enduring human problem, which is the problem of mortality. With a limited number of years to do whatever it is that we are supposed to be doing here, who has time to stop?
Barbara Brown Taylor is a writer and teacher at Piedmont College in Georgia. She was ordained an Episcopal priest and writes about the life of the church—and the church of life. This excerpt is from her book called Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith.
Truly Rambling on
Rory
Wollongong with Mt Keira in background
We hiked Mt Keira today...Nick also got three of the famous Mt Keira rainforest leeches...Sara and I were envious!
These are web copied photos..the kids have not loaded any pictures yet.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Nicks guest posts
Day 1:
Woke up at 6 AM and got on a 45 minute flight from Brainerd to Minneapolis. We then spent 20 minutes rushing through the Minneapolis airport. After that we flew a 3.5 hour flights to L.A.! So far, we’ve spent 8 hours bumming around the L.A. airport. 2.5 hours left ‘till we board our 14 hour flight to Australia. It’s been a long day, but it’s totally worth it. It’s odd though; we are actually skipping Tuesday and will be arriving in Australia on Wednesday. TWILIGHT ZONE Doo do doo do doo do doo do…. Can you tell I’m sleep deprived?
Day 2
So…I’m writing this Thursday… about Wednesday…which was your Tuesday. Anyway, when we got off our 14 hour plane flight we got on one final 3.5 hour flight from New Zealand to Australia. The time was approximately 10:00 am (7:00 pm there). We then hopped on a shuttle for a 40 minute drive to our final destination (a hostel in Wollongong). We met some very nice people on the shuttle who gave us a bunch of tips on places to go and things to do… Hopefully we didn’t give off to much of a bad representation from our sleep deprived expressions and amusement that the shuttle was driving on the left side of the rode. When we reached our destination it was the basic move in, settle down, wonder around town aimlessly and return to the hostel for an early bed time due to jet leg.
Day 3 (Thursday to us, Wednesday to you)
This was a sleep in day…at least for me and Sara. Jet leg caused us to get 15 hours of sleep, but now we are right on track. Unfortunately, my Dad’s digestive track was way of course. We think he may have gotten some bad airplane food. With him sick and Mom exploring at work, it was up to me and Sara to explore the down town. We searched the mall and picked up some groceries at the local grocery store. Other than that, this was mostly a relax and get used to things day and a recovery day for Dad.
Day 4!
Our first adventure day! Dad was feeling fine, which prompted an early wake up. We all ate breakfast together and shortly after it was work time for Mom (Don’t worry, she has all weekend off so she’s not working the whole time and she says it’s pretty laid back so we should get to see a lot of her). Dad, Sara and I went off to explore the Beach. It was a fabulous day of sea shell collecting, beach food eating, and Sea gull chasing (The sea gulls here are mean. Sara tried to feed one a French fry and they all decided to swarm and attack each other over it.) We also got a bunch of really cool pictures including ones of us standing next to a very regal looking pelican. Sara got and ice cream cone near the beach that we all shared. It was a really odd almost whip cream texture, very different from ours. We spent the rest of the day wondering around the city, eating delicious apples, and listening to a really great street performer. All in all, it was a very eventful day, and we are all very excited for tomorrow.
Day 5
Day 5 was another kind of relax day due to the excessively rainy weather. Mom worked on her paper. Sara, Dad and I went off in our separate directions to explore more of the town, dilly dally in stores and see what streets led where. Later that night we had a very nice spaghetti dinner together that Sara cooked in the hostel kitchen.
Day 6
Father’s Day! Unfortunately, Father’s day isn’t an Australian holiday, so there weren’t any Father’s day specials. However, we went to the Wesley Uniting Church (the church at the mall). It was a wonderful service that Sara and I thought reminded us a lot of Eddie Izzard’s description of the Church of England. We had lunch at a small Greek restaurant and then ventured to a small modern art museum…. That was really odd. After that, we spent the rest of the day wondering in an out of various stores picking up typical tourist souvenirs and searching the local grocery store for what we’d eat for dinner. We’ve gotten to see a lot of interesting birds here too. There was a really weird version of a crow outside the grocery store that looked like a crow but sounded like a dying sheep.
Woke up at 6 AM and got on a 45 minute flight from Brainerd to Minneapolis. We then spent 20 minutes rushing through the Minneapolis airport. After that we flew a 3.5 hour flights to L.A.! So far, we’ve spent 8 hours bumming around the L.A. airport. 2.5 hours left ‘till we board our 14 hour flight to Australia. It’s been a long day, but it’s totally worth it. It’s odd though; we are actually skipping Tuesday and will be arriving in Australia on Wednesday. TWILIGHT ZONE Doo do doo do doo do doo do…. Can you tell I’m sleep deprived?
Day 2
So…I’m writing this Thursday… about Wednesday…which was your Tuesday. Anyway, when we got off our 14 hour plane flight we got on one final 3.5 hour flight from New Zealand to Australia. The time was approximately 10:00 am (7:00 pm there). We then hopped on a shuttle for a 40 minute drive to our final destination (a hostel in Wollongong). We met some very nice people on the shuttle who gave us a bunch of tips on places to go and things to do… Hopefully we didn’t give off to much of a bad representation from our sleep deprived expressions and amusement that the shuttle was driving on the left side of the rode. When we reached our destination it was the basic move in, settle down, wonder around town aimlessly and return to the hostel for an early bed time due to jet leg.
Day 3 (Thursday to us, Wednesday to you)
This was a sleep in day…at least for me and Sara. Jet leg caused us to get 15 hours of sleep, but now we are right on track. Unfortunately, my Dad’s digestive track was way of course. We think he may have gotten some bad airplane food. With him sick and Mom exploring at work, it was up to me and Sara to explore the down town. We searched the mall and picked up some groceries at the local grocery store. Other than that, this was mostly a relax and get used to things day and a recovery day for Dad.
Day 4!
Our first adventure day! Dad was feeling fine, which prompted an early wake up. We all ate breakfast together and shortly after it was work time for Mom (Don’t worry, she has all weekend off so she’s not working the whole time and she says it’s pretty laid back so we should get to see a lot of her). Dad, Sara and I went off to explore the Beach. It was a fabulous day of sea shell collecting, beach food eating, and Sea gull chasing (The sea gulls here are mean. Sara tried to feed one a French fry and they all decided to swarm and attack each other over it.) We also got a bunch of really cool pictures including ones of us standing next to a very regal looking pelican. Sara got and ice cream cone near the beach that we all shared. It was a really odd almost whip cream texture, very different from ours. We spent the rest of the day wondering around the city, eating delicious apples, and listening to a really great street performer. All in all, it was a very eventful day, and we are all very excited for tomorrow.
Day 5
Day 5 was another kind of relax day due to the excessively rainy weather. Mom worked on her paper. Sara, Dad and I went off in our separate directions to explore more of the town, dilly dally in stores and see what streets led where. Later that night we had a very nice spaghetti dinner together that Sara cooked in the hostel kitchen.
Day 6
Father’s Day! Unfortunately, Father’s day isn’t an Australian holiday, so there weren’t any Father’s day specials. However, we went to the Wesley Uniting Church (the church at the mall). It was a wonderful service that Sara and I thought reminded us a lot of Eddie Izzard’s description of the Church of England. We had lunch at a small Greek restaurant and then ventured to a small modern art museum…. That was really odd. After that, we spent the rest of the day wondering in an out of various stores picking up typical tourist souvenirs and searching the local grocery store for what we’d eat for dinner. We’ve gotten to see a lot of interesting birds here too. There was a really weird version of a crow outside the grocery store that looked like a crow but sounded like a dying sheep.
Mindfullness
Reading is good, hearing is good, conversation and meditation are
good; but then, they are only good at times and occasions, in a
certain degree, and must be used and governed with such caution as
we eat and drink and refresh ourselves, or they will bring forth in
us the fruits of intemperance. But the spirit of prayer is for all
times and occasions; it is a lamp that is to be always burning, a
light to be ever shining: everything calls for it; everything is to
be done in it and governed by it, because it is and means and wills
nothing else but the totality of the soul -- not doing this or
that, but wholly...given up to God to be where and what and how He
pleases.
- William Law
as posted on the Daily Spiritual Seed............
This reminds me of the Buddhist "mindfullness"
good; but then, they are only good at times and occasions, in a
certain degree, and must be used and governed with such caution as
we eat and drink and refresh ourselves, or they will bring forth in
us the fruits of intemperance. But the spirit of prayer is for all
times and occasions; it is a lamp that is to be always burning, a
light to be ever shining: everything calls for it; everything is to
be done in it and governed by it, because it is and means and wills
nothing else but the totality of the soul -- not doing this or
that, but wholly...given up to God to be where and what and how He
pleases.
- William Law
as posted on the Daily Spiritual Seed............
This reminds me of the Buddhist "mindfullness"
Rambles from Wollongong
I have not done my own blog note for the trip... We spent most of Sunday night and morning getting ready to leave and even after we got on the plane I kept thinking of things such as “did anybody run the dish washer and if so, did the door get left open so we are not leaving moisture in the dishwasher?"…my practical worrisome side of me gets to be a nagging bother. But at least I know the iron was unplugged!
My traveling book was Living Buddha, Living Christ by Thich Nhat Hahn and I valued his insights. I would recommend it. He says that if , as a Christian I am living with a sense of awareness and joy and interbeing (living with a sense of being in the kingdom of God) I am also a Buddhist. P197
We had to fill out some Public Health Passenger Locator Forms, should we develop any H1N1 Swine flu symptoms.. Two people self identified their symptoms to the flight crew and they were immediately given masks and then escorted by health officials at the airport . One of them sat right in front of Sara and me . Saw only a few other people wearing masks... General public doesn’t seem too concerned. Beth says if she has even a cough she will be banned from visiting in the schools. We were scanned by some infra red cameras that took our temp as we came off the plane.
Mt inner time clock is way out of wack. Maybe it was the idea of having gone from Monday night to Wed without any Tuesday sunrise!
Wollongong is not known as a tourist town. It has a coal and steel industry, shipping; economic base along with the university. Wonderful cultural diversity, many Asian cultures. More restaurants than I have ever seen in an area. We have an easy walk to the beaches and a nice city center mall area. We shop at a great Woolworth grocery store. Sara quickly noticed the total absence of corn syrup in the products.
Our university apt is very modest and furnishings are minimal. Cooking burners were removed due to fire alarm and smoke liablities so that is done in a community kitchen.
I am at a loss to know what kinds of birds I’m seeing and hearing as well as the kinds of trees. Many kinds of palm type trees, of course, as well as some trees that are going into an autumn stage so dry leaves are blowing around. I am hoping for a clear night to observe the Southern Cross constellation, but no luck yet.
Other notes of possible interest.. .
I am growing a beard,, gray white and scruffy so far.. will see what develops!
Went to Wollongong Wesley Uniting Church on the mall, it’s a city mission church.
Thanks for reading,,
facebook users can also be updated there
Rambling on
My traveling book was Living Buddha, Living Christ by Thich Nhat Hahn and I valued his insights. I would recommend it. He says that if , as a Christian I am living with a sense of awareness and joy and interbeing (living with a sense of being in the kingdom of God) I am also a Buddhist. P197
We had to fill out some Public Health Passenger Locator Forms, should we develop any H1N1 Swine flu symptoms.. Two people self identified their symptoms to the flight crew and they were immediately given masks and then escorted by health officials at the airport . One of them sat right in front of Sara and me . Saw only a few other people wearing masks... General public doesn’t seem too concerned. Beth says if she has even a cough she will be banned from visiting in the schools. We were scanned by some infra red cameras that took our temp as we came off the plane.
Mt inner time clock is way out of wack. Maybe it was the idea of having gone from Monday night to Wed without any Tuesday sunrise!
Wollongong is not known as a tourist town. It has a coal and steel industry, shipping; economic base along with the university. Wonderful cultural diversity, many Asian cultures. More restaurants than I have ever seen in an area. We have an easy walk to the beaches and a nice city center mall area. We shop at a great Woolworth grocery store. Sara quickly noticed the total absence of corn syrup in the products.
Our university apt is very modest and furnishings are minimal. Cooking burners were removed due to fire alarm and smoke liablities so that is done in a community kitchen.
I am at a loss to know what kinds of birds I’m seeing and hearing as well as the kinds of trees. Many kinds of palm type trees, of course, as well as some trees that are going into an autumn stage so dry leaves are blowing around. I am hoping for a clear night to observe the Southern Cross constellation, but no luck yet.
Other notes of possible interest.. .
I am growing a beard,, gray white and scruffy so far.. will see what develops!
Went to Wollongong Wesley Uniting Church on the mall, it’s a city mission church.
Thanks for reading,,
facebook users can also be updated there
Rambling on
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Sara's Guest Blog
Hello! I apologize to any of you who have been waiting on my very special updates for a superbly chosen word on our adventures here. (Don't worry, I'm kidding!) As much as I would love to excuse myself by saying that I just haven’t been able to spare a single action-packed minute to write, our delightful koala-like laziness here (which I feel I must honestly report, by duty as chosen record keeper) doesn’t allow for such egregious lies.
To start: here is a post that I wrote while waiting for our flight out of the L.A. Airport.
I’m writing this post via Microsoft Word on a plastic waiting lounge chair that is the color of uncooked hotdogs. I should be walking around, I know that, because we will be sitting for another fourteen hours in just, oh, another three hours or so (it’s been a seven hour layover), but my mind and body have fallen into the insensible meditative trance of travel. I do not need to move. I do not need to eat. I do not need to sleep. (I think it is something that they put in the airplane peanuts.) Dad and I have determined that these airport terminals are all worm hole loops into the Twilight Zone. Here, we are in no country and in no time zone; it is simultaneously 8:31 p.m. in Minnesota and 6:31 p.m. in L.A. on Monday, and 4:31 a.m. in New Zealand on Tuesday. Taking an average of these, that means that the specific time zone of my own small country, The Nation of the Hot-Dog-Colored Chair, is it is approximately 10:31 p.m. on a warm and sunny Muesday night. I have heard nine languages spoken in the last forty-five minutes, and made countless six-second friends. There was an old man at the luggage gate who told me that I was beautiful, that I had one of the most beautiful smiles he had ever seen, and that I should just keep smiling forever. The woman across from us was reading a copy of Dan Brown’s /Angels and Demons/ with a misspelling on the cover: /Anges and Demons/. There was a lobster-like fellow I saw who had white sunglasses permanently sun-burnt atop his bald head. There was a boy my age, barefoot, sleeping in a dirty flannel under the benches near baggage claim; and a ten-year-old boy from D.C. who was flying to Honolulu alone.
I think people get stuck here. We get time-warped in. Reality is suspended. The whole surreal effect is not reduced by the fact that my brother is currently sitting on the floor in front of me performing slight-of-hand magic tricks.
Yes, indeed – there must be something in the peanuts.
For more practical details and less musing: a brief account of how we came to be laminated inside of this Sci-Fi bubble:
We had intended to leave at five this morning, but good intentions only got anybody as far the garden of Eden. My fellow-of-choice, Ryan, showed up around three to help our sleepless family pack and organize, then he dropped us off at the airport and returned the car back home. We took a short, half hour flight (complete with peanuts) to Minneapolis, rushed to catch a connection there, and spent four hours on a plain to L.A. during which time I wrote the following experimental impression (forgive me, for I have been reading too much of Virginia Woolf):
“Looking out the window, I can see the mountains – spiked like little more than the sand ridges on top of an ant hill. There are no cars or people – only thin metal strips carved into the land where roads might be, at the microscopic level. The cloud shadows trace one another, using the mountains to launch back into the sky. From here, there shapes are perfect replicas of the clouds they so long to rejoin, but on Earth, they are whole darkened hours of dimness. I want to jump down, to fall for a thousand years and land in an eternal embrace with the land. Not to die; just to become part of it again. The wild images of black-blue lakes with traceable depths; long stretches of fire-red sand; miles of farmland laid out in quilt patches of greenery; and the beetle-backed glimmer of housing complexes below. The beauty is so complex, so captivating, and so constant. I am almost happy when the cloud cover consumes us in white. It is a relief, then – an excuse not to feel guilty for growing accustomed to the fantastic. The beauty is so unattainable, unretainable, overwhelmingly incapturable, that it is forgettable. I view what humankind has dreamt of for thousands of years: flight. The Earth from God’s view. The smallest, hardest parts of my heart are resentful that I cannot look away, that I should not look away. And yet, it is just that: only a flight. And we have four hours to go before L.A. then fourteen after that, to Auckland.”
Not much happened on that trip, either. Great view. Watched an obscure chick-flick film called “He’s Just Not that Into You,” tried to read, tinkered with the air vents, listened in on other people’s conversations, silently warred with my brother over control of the arm rest; the basic hobbies of any flier attuned to proper travel etiquette. Ate more peanuts (I’m on my fifth pack today – inexplicably addictive).
Have since been hanging out in the New Zealand International Air section of the L.A. airport. I don’t even know which airport, actually – I’m just along for the ride. My family has sustained itself primarily on, yes, Delta Airlines Complimentary Peanuts and a bag of warm mozzarella cheese-sticks, as the cheapest thing on any menu here is an eight dollar Burger King Whopper Junior – an option which only served to reinforced my and Nick’s vegetarianism.
(Am currently overhearing a fantastic conversation by a round little man with a belly like a beach-ball and a thick Israeli accent saying, “Hey, babe; hey, babe, I know whatchu doing. I know. We… Now, now, I give you a call back from Israel. Yeah, babe. Now, now, you take care of yourself.”)
Dad has been reading a fantastic book about Buddhism and Christianity. He wants me to add that he has to duck behind it occasionally, as, being in L.A. – the land of superstars – he is repeatedly called out for his fame and fortune. There is no rest for his degree of celebrity. Mom is finishing some homework for her last online doctorate class this semester; Nick is still hard at work with his magic tricks; and I? I am reveling in the self-gratification of writing long-winded posts for my father’s blog. However, I have discovered the special balcony which leads to the first class Canada Air Maple Leaf Lounge, which apparently has free food, free facials, and tables full of women in expensive velvet sweat-suits with matching luggage. This may merit further investigation.
Turns out there wasn’t much to investigate. To quote an exchange between F. Scott Fitzgerald and William Faulkner:
Fitzgerald:The rich are different than the rest of us.
Faulkner: Yes. They have more money.
I’m afraid I don’t have too much to report about the long flight, either. Being an author, I could spent 95 pages describing the patterns on the seats; or the individual screens on the backs of each of the seats with a singular selection of over 70 films, 120 CDs, 12 radio stations, and a second-by-second interactive map update on the status of our route; or the beautiful blonde British girl who sat next to me, or the food selections (Nick and I had the vegan option: soy milk, local organic fruit, turmeric vegetables with tofu – three meals? The list goes on. AND none of the drinks were served with ice. AND the pilot made a special request that we keep our same plastic cups through the duration of the flight to save the environment (!)). To summarize: we flew from L.A. to Auckland, New Zealand and skipped Tuesday, then had a two hour long sunrise as we flew backwards two hours into Sydney, Australia. Here, we had our second breakfasts. Then, after collecting our bags in a stupor and haze, we rushed to find the shuttle that would take us to Wollongong. As it turns out, we weren’t on the shuttle driver’s list because our bookings hadn’t gone through, but divine intervention allowed us to bumble into him, baggage and all, so out of the kindness of his heart, he took us in, and we figured out the situation while he drove.
We settled into our Youth Hostel apartments immediately upon arrival, then went out to explore the local area. Mom had the hardest time with jet lag, because she had been awake the week before doing presentations in Washington D.C. She slept while my dad, Nick, and I shopped around a local mall and picked up some basic groceries at the Woolworth’s Market. Even without the unusual change in sunlight (sunset here happens around 5:30 p.m.) we were all back in our beds and asleep by 7:00 p.m. Nick and I both slept for over fifteen hours, but Mom and Dad woke up around 2:00 a.m. our time, unable to adjust to the new pattern. Dad wasn’t feeling very well the next day, then, so Nick and I did a little exploring on our own while Mom was getting set up in her office at the University of Wollongong. We learned the city bus system and did some more necessary grocery shopping, before settling in for an early night of music and reading.
Yesterday, Dad was feeling much better, so the three of us took the city bus around and spent several hours exploring the beach and harbor. I, for one, absolutely fell in love with the ocean. Even though the last few days have been windy and rainy, the sea seemed impervious to weather changes. Determined surfers still rolled over the whitecaps, and seashells decorated the ever-shifting shorelines – still glittering, despite the cloudy sky above. With our luck, the sky cleared up just enough for us to enjoy a couple of warm afternoon hours wandering up and down the beach. For lunch, I experimented with some fried calamari, and was almost pecked to death by some French-fry enthusiast sea-gulls (I learned my lesson then! No sharing, here; the sea gulls are MUCH meaner). Dad ate an Australian beef hamburger that was literally as big in circumference as his head, and Nick had a lovely Greek salad. Afterwards, we toured the lighthouse hill, and I bought a whipped ice cream cone out of the back of an old 70’s VW-style bus in the parking lot. I whipped ice cream was almost like condensed cool whip, which we determined had a lower melting rate than normal ice cream cones, and therefore would be a popular seller in the hot Australian summer times.
In the evening, we all bought apples from a local market and listened to a street musician playing guitar in the outdoor mall court. I gave him a dollar for playing Bob Dylan, and he waved to us after he packed up to leave. We sat on our park bench eating our apples and people watching long after he left.
Today, we all went our separate directions. Mom stayed in and finished some homework, while Nick read and explored the beach by himself. I also spent some time at the beach, but mostly hung about the city library with my dad, and the two of us tried some Australian McDonalds food to see if we could taste any difference (not really, but it is supposed to be healthier). Then Dad went back to the apartments and I took the bus around about six times, people watching and reading my book.
All and all, thus far it has been a relaxing, slow-paced trip. I made spaghetti tonight, and our family has enjoyed the primarily organic and local food options available to us at through the local supermarket. The cultural differences here are surprisingly slim. Most of the music played here is American, and all of the movies advertised are American, too. The city is comprised of many very small local shops and restaurants, and is only about twice the size of Duluth, MN in population. Some of the main differences we have noticed are mainly environmental and dietary. For instance, there is no High-Fructose Corn Syrup in any of the foods (even the regular Coke and Pepsi use sucrose instead), toilets have two flush buttons for less water, outlets have off/on switches, and refrigerators are all required to have efficiency-rating stickers by the handle. The accent is a given difference, though, and it is fun to hear. So, too, at least half of the population here is Asian, so there is a separate Asian-Australian accent that we’ve also become attuned to. None of us has seen a kangaroo yet, but everyone says they are the Australian equivalent of our white-tailed deer. I was talking to a very friendly woman on the shuttle who had just come back from visiting North Carolina. She thought it was odd that we were all so excited to see kangaroos, when we had such unusual and funny creatures as squirrels living in our own backyards! I guess, as she said, you know that you are a tourist when the most common wildlife seems the most exotic.
Thanks again for everyone’s patience in waiting for my post. I hope it wasn’t too long for anyone. I’ll keep you gall updated with shorter posts from here on out, now that we have access to the internet. I love you all and miss you all very much. Take care, and you will hear from me soon.
Best regards,
Sara Ann
To start: here is a post that I wrote while waiting for our flight out of the L.A. Airport.
I’m writing this post via Microsoft Word on a plastic waiting lounge chair that is the color of uncooked hotdogs. I should be walking around, I know that, because we will be sitting for another fourteen hours in just, oh, another three hours or so (it’s been a seven hour layover), but my mind and body have fallen into the insensible meditative trance of travel. I do not need to move. I do not need to eat. I do not need to sleep. (I think it is something that they put in the airplane peanuts.) Dad and I have determined that these airport terminals are all worm hole loops into the Twilight Zone. Here, we are in no country and in no time zone; it is simultaneously 8:31 p.m. in Minnesota and 6:31 p.m. in L.A. on Monday, and 4:31 a.m. in New Zealand on Tuesday. Taking an average of these, that means that the specific time zone of my own small country, The Nation of the Hot-Dog-Colored Chair, is it is approximately 10:31 p.m. on a warm and sunny Muesday night. I have heard nine languages spoken in the last forty-five minutes, and made countless six-second friends. There was an old man at the luggage gate who told me that I was beautiful, that I had one of the most beautiful smiles he had ever seen, and that I should just keep smiling forever. The woman across from us was reading a copy of Dan Brown’s /Angels and Demons/ with a misspelling on the cover: /Anges and Demons/. There was a lobster-like fellow I saw who had white sunglasses permanently sun-burnt atop his bald head. There was a boy my age, barefoot, sleeping in a dirty flannel under the benches near baggage claim; and a ten-year-old boy from D.C. who was flying to Honolulu alone.
I think people get stuck here. We get time-warped in. Reality is suspended. The whole surreal effect is not reduced by the fact that my brother is currently sitting on the floor in front of me performing slight-of-hand magic tricks.
Yes, indeed – there must be something in the peanuts.
For more practical details and less musing: a brief account of how we came to be laminated inside of this Sci-Fi bubble:
We had intended to leave at five this morning, but good intentions only got anybody as far the garden of Eden. My fellow-of-choice, Ryan, showed up around three to help our sleepless family pack and organize, then he dropped us off at the airport and returned the car back home. We took a short, half hour flight (complete with peanuts) to Minneapolis, rushed to catch a connection there, and spent four hours on a plain to L.A. during which time I wrote the following experimental impression (forgive me, for I have been reading too much of Virginia Woolf):
“Looking out the window, I can see the mountains – spiked like little more than the sand ridges on top of an ant hill. There are no cars or people – only thin metal strips carved into the land where roads might be, at the microscopic level. The cloud shadows trace one another, using the mountains to launch back into the sky. From here, there shapes are perfect replicas of the clouds they so long to rejoin, but on Earth, they are whole darkened hours of dimness. I want to jump down, to fall for a thousand years and land in an eternal embrace with the land. Not to die; just to become part of it again. The wild images of black-blue lakes with traceable depths; long stretches of fire-red sand; miles of farmland laid out in quilt patches of greenery; and the beetle-backed glimmer of housing complexes below. The beauty is so complex, so captivating, and so constant. I am almost happy when the cloud cover consumes us in white. It is a relief, then – an excuse not to feel guilty for growing accustomed to the fantastic. The beauty is so unattainable, unretainable, overwhelmingly incapturable, that it is forgettable. I view what humankind has dreamt of for thousands of years: flight. The Earth from God’s view. The smallest, hardest parts of my heart are resentful that I cannot look away, that I should not look away. And yet, it is just that: only a flight. And we have four hours to go before L.A. then fourteen after that, to Auckland.”
Not much happened on that trip, either. Great view. Watched an obscure chick-flick film called “He’s Just Not that Into You,” tried to read, tinkered with the air vents, listened in on other people’s conversations, silently warred with my brother over control of the arm rest; the basic hobbies of any flier attuned to proper travel etiquette. Ate more peanuts (I’m on my fifth pack today – inexplicably addictive).
Have since been hanging out in the New Zealand International Air section of the L.A. airport. I don’t even know which airport, actually – I’m just along for the ride. My family has sustained itself primarily on, yes, Delta Airlines Complimentary Peanuts and a bag of warm mozzarella cheese-sticks, as the cheapest thing on any menu here is an eight dollar Burger King Whopper Junior – an option which only served to reinforced my and Nick’s vegetarianism.
(Am currently overhearing a fantastic conversation by a round little man with a belly like a beach-ball and a thick Israeli accent saying, “Hey, babe; hey, babe, I know whatchu doing. I know. We… Now, now, I give you a call back from Israel. Yeah, babe. Now, now, you take care of yourself.”)
Dad has been reading a fantastic book about Buddhism and Christianity. He wants me to add that he has to duck behind it occasionally, as, being in L.A. – the land of superstars – he is repeatedly called out for his fame and fortune. There is no rest for his degree of celebrity. Mom is finishing some homework for her last online doctorate class this semester; Nick is still hard at work with his magic tricks; and I? I am reveling in the self-gratification of writing long-winded posts for my father’s blog. However, I have discovered the special balcony which leads to the first class Canada Air Maple Leaf Lounge, which apparently has free food, free facials, and tables full of women in expensive velvet sweat-suits with matching luggage. This may merit further investigation.
Turns out there wasn’t much to investigate. To quote an exchange between F. Scott Fitzgerald and William Faulkner:
Fitzgerald:The rich are different than the rest of us.
Faulkner: Yes. They have more money.
I’m afraid I don’t have too much to report about the long flight, either. Being an author, I could spent 95 pages describing the patterns on the seats; or the individual screens on the backs of each of the seats with a singular selection of over 70 films, 120 CDs, 12 radio stations, and a second-by-second interactive map update on the status of our route; or the beautiful blonde British girl who sat next to me, or the food selections (Nick and I had the vegan option: soy milk, local organic fruit, turmeric vegetables with tofu – three meals? The list goes on. AND none of the drinks were served with ice. AND the pilot made a special request that we keep our same plastic cups through the duration of the flight to save the environment (!)). To summarize: we flew from L.A. to Auckland, New Zealand and skipped Tuesday, then had a two hour long sunrise as we flew backwards two hours into Sydney, Australia. Here, we had our second breakfasts. Then, after collecting our bags in a stupor and haze, we rushed to find the shuttle that would take us to Wollongong. As it turns out, we weren’t on the shuttle driver’s list because our bookings hadn’t gone through, but divine intervention allowed us to bumble into him, baggage and all, so out of the kindness of his heart, he took us in, and we figured out the situation while he drove.
We settled into our Youth Hostel apartments immediately upon arrival, then went out to explore the local area. Mom had the hardest time with jet lag, because she had been awake the week before doing presentations in Washington D.C. She slept while my dad, Nick, and I shopped around a local mall and picked up some basic groceries at the Woolworth’s Market. Even without the unusual change in sunlight (sunset here happens around 5:30 p.m.) we were all back in our beds and asleep by 7:00 p.m. Nick and I both slept for over fifteen hours, but Mom and Dad woke up around 2:00 a.m. our time, unable to adjust to the new pattern. Dad wasn’t feeling very well the next day, then, so Nick and I did a little exploring on our own while Mom was getting set up in her office at the University of Wollongong. We learned the city bus system and did some more necessary grocery shopping, before settling in for an early night of music and reading.
Yesterday, Dad was feeling much better, so the three of us took the city bus around and spent several hours exploring the beach and harbor. I, for one, absolutely fell in love with the ocean. Even though the last few days have been windy and rainy, the sea seemed impervious to weather changes. Determined surfers still rolled over the whitecaps, and seashells decorated the ever-shifting shorelines – still glittering, despite the cloudy sky above. With our luck, the sky cleared up just enough for us to enjoy a couple of warm afternoon hours wandering up and down the beach. For lunch, I experimented with some fried calamari, and was almost pecked to death by some French-fry enthusiast sea-gulls (I learned my lesson then! No sharing, here; the sea gulls are MUCH meaner). Dad ate an Australian beef hamburger that was literally as big in circumference as his head, and Nick had a lovely Greek salad. Afterwards, we toured the lighthouse hill, and I bought a whipped ice cream cone out of the back of an old 70’s VW-style bus in the parking lot. I whipped ice cream was almost like condensed cool whip, which we determined had a lower melting rate than normal ice cream cones, and therefore would be a popular seller in the hot Australian summer times.
In the evening, we all bought apples from a local market and listened to a street musician playing guitar in the outdoor mall court. I gave him a dollar for playing Bob Dylan, and he waved to us after he packed up to leave. We sat on our park bench eating our apples and people watching long after he left.
Today, we all went our separate directions. Mom stayed in and finished some homework, while Nick read and explored the beach by himself. I also spent some time at the beach, but mostly hung about the city library with my dad, and the two of us tried some Australian McDonalds food to see if we could taste any difference (not really, but it is supposed to be healthier). Then Dad went back to the apartments and I took the bus around about six times, people watching and reading my book.
All and all, thus far it has been a relaxing, slow-paced trip. I made spaghetti tonight, and our family has enjoyed the primarily organic and local food options available to us at through the local supermarket. The cultural differences here are surprisingly slim. Most of the music played here is American, and all of the movies advertised are American, too. The city is comprised of many very small local shops and restaurants, and is only about twice the size of Duluth, MN in population. Some of the main differences we have noticed are mainly environmental and dietary. For instance, there is no High-Fructose Corn Syrup in any of the foods (even the regular Coke and Pepsi use sucrose instead), toilets have two flush buttons for less water, outlets have off/on switches, and refrigerators are all required to have efficiency-rating stickers by the handle. The accent is a given difference, though, and it is fun to hear. So, too, at least half of the population here is Asian, so there is a separate Asian-Australian accent that we’ve also become attuned to. None of us has seen a kangaroo yet, but everyone says they are the Australian equivalent of our white-tailed deer. I was talking to a very friendly woman on the shuttle who had just come back from visiting North Carolina. She thought it was odd that we were all so excited to see kangaroos, when we had such unusual and funny creatures as squirrels living in our own backyards! I guess, as she said, you know that you are a tourist when the most common wildlife seems the most exotic.
Thanks again for everyone’s patience in waiting for my post. I hope it wasn’t too long for anyone. I’ll keep you gall updated with shorter posts from here on out, now that we have access to the internet. I love you all and miss you all very much. Take care, and you will hear from me soon.
Best regards,
Sara Ann
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Guest Blogger Beth: Update Day 1:
Jan picked me up yesterday at 2:00 and took me to the university. They call it "the uni". She introduced me to the dean, and several other folks. I met the woman who will take me to schools next week. Jan showed me through all of the buildings. Told me the history of the university. She said it started in the 60s as a strand of one of the larger universities, and broke off many years ago to become its own. She said there are 4 major uni's in Australia. Those are their IVY league. Then the rest are Outback posts. She also said that the school system here has 3 systems. The first is the government system. THat is the biggest. Then is the private schools - those are the church schools, then the catholic system. She said all where uniforms K-12. Elementary is K-5, High School is 7-10, then extension is 11-12. She told me that they have been negatively influenced by the bush administration and have gotten into state testing. Now they are currently writing a national curriculum and will have national tests to pass at each level 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12. Sounds like MCA'S. Jan is the president of the National Literacy Board. She is in charge of the Writing curriculum and standards. Next Thursday I am invited to the big dinner where they review the standards and revise them! How fun!
The thing that most sticks out in my mind as an Aha of the day: Eye contact. Each person I met today had unbelievable eye contact. They maintain full eye contact through the entire conversation. Very open folks. Very honest and friendly. They let you right in. Very different than America. I know about their dogs, their families, their work.
Jan took me down for coffee (she had tea) at 4:30. She said they live in the coffee shop just under their offices. Any excuse for a celebration they have one. Jan had Chi tea, I had a FLAT WHITE. (That is coffee with milk). It was funny. Everyone nursed their thimble full of coffee. I drank mine in three sips and realized that I would never have a 24 oz cafine drink for 2 months! They drink their coffee one ounce at a time! Yikes!
Our "appartment" turned out to be two rooms with a college sized fridge and a microwave. We have existed on yogurt, tasty cheese (that is what they call it), crackers and cereal. Not much cooking here.
We will be here for 11 days then it is off to the first conference. The teacher's conference. It will be interesting to see how similar or different it is to our union conferernces.
TOday I have at 11 appointment with Lisa Kervin. I will use her office the whole time I am here. She will pick me up and will go in to get my computer hooked through there system, then I will get my pin for the copier, library card, and have lunch with "the girls". We will plan out the rest of my trip.
More later,
Beth
Jan picked me up yesterday at 2:00 and took me to the university. They call it "the uni". She introduced me to the dean, and several other folks. I met the woman who will take me to schools next week. Jan showed me through all of the buildings. Told me the history of the university. She said it started in the 60s as a strand of one of the larger universities, and broke off many years ago to become its own. She said there are 4 major uni's in Australia. Those are their IVY league. Then the rest are Outback posts. She also said that the school system here has 3 systems. The first is the government system. THat is the biggest. Then is the private schools - those are the church schools, then the catholic system. She said all where uniforms K-12. Elementary is K-5, High School is 7-10, then extension is 11-12. She told me that they have been negatively influenced by the bush administration and have gotten into state testing. Now they are currently writing a national curriculum and will have national tests to pass at each level 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12. Sounds like MCA'S. Jan is the president of the National Literacy Board. She is in charge of the Writing curriculum and standards. Next Thursday I am invited to the big dinner where they review the standards and revise them! How fun!
The thing that most sticks out in my mind as an Aha of the day: Eye contact. Each person I met today had unbelievable eye contact. They maintain full eye contact through the entire conversation. Very open folks. Very honest and friendly. They let you right in. Very different than America. I know about their dogs, their families, their work.
Jan took me down for coffee (she had tea) at 4:30. She said they live in the coffee shop just under their offices. Any excuse for a celebration they have one. Jan had Chi tea, I had a FLAT WHITE. (That is coffee with milk). It was funny. Everyone nursed their thimble full of coffee. I drank mine in three sips and realized that I would never have a 24 oz cafine drink for 2 months! They drink their coffee one ounce at a time! Yikes!
Our "appartment" turned out to be two rooms with a college sized fridge and a microwave. We have existed on yogurt, tasty cheese (that is what they call it), crackers and cereal. Not much cooking here.
We will be here for 11 days then it is off to the first conference. The teacher's conference. It will be interesting to see how similar or different it is to our union conferernces.
TOday I have at 11 appointment with Lisa Kervin. I will use her office the whole time I am here. She will pick me up and will go in to get my computer hooked through there system, then I will get my pin for the copier, library card, and have lunch with "the girls". We will plan out the rest of my trip.
More later,
Beth
Sunday, June 14, 2009
From the Upper Room
COME, SPIRIT,
breath of God, breathe new life into me.
Blow away the cobwebs in my mind:
clear away the debris in my soul.
Bring healing to my wounds
and comfort to my grief.
Refresh my spirit, set my feet to dancing,
and set my heart ablaze.
Wind of God, touch my life
and open me to your direction.
Amen.
- Larry James Peacock
Openings: A Daybook of Saints, Psalms, and Prayer
From p. 143 of Openings: A Daybook of Saints, Psalms, and Prayer
by Larry James Peacock.
Copyright © 2003 by the author.
All Rights Reserved
breath of God, breathe new life into me.
Blow away the cobwebs in my mind:
clear away the debris in my soul.
Bring healing to my wounds
and comfort to my grief.
Refresh my spirit, set my feet to dancing,
and set my heart ablaze.
Wind of God, touch my life
and open me to your direction.
Amen.
- Larry James Peacock
Openings: A Daybook of Saints, Psalms, and Prayer
From p. 143 of Openings: A Daybook of Saints, Psalms, and Prayer
by Larry James Peacock.
Copyright © 2003 by the author.
All Rights Reserved
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Get Lost
To know exactly where you're headed
may be the best way to go astray.
Not all those who loiter are lost.
— Anthony de Mello
in The Heart of Enlightenment
From Spirituality and Practice web site
It reminds me of Barbara Brown Taylor's chapter "The Practice of Getting Lost" p. 69 in An Altar in the World.
I expect to try this a few times in the weeks ahead!
may be the best way to go astray.
Not all those who loiter are lost.
— Anthony de Mello
in The Heart of Enlightenment
From Spirituality and Practice web site
It reminds me of Barbara Brown Taylor's chapter "The Practice of Getting Lost" p. 69 in An Altar in the World.
I expect to try this a few times in the weeks ahead!
Friday, June 12, 2009
Metta
I am hoping to learn new words and ideas while in Australia and New Zealand and the fun has already begun.
While trying to arrange a retreat or visit at the Nan Tien Temple
http://www.nantien.org.au/
my email from there ended "with metta"
I did not know what metta was so I looked it up:
The Pali word metta is a multi-significant term meaning loving-kindness, friendliness, goodwill, benevolence, fellowship, amity, concord, inoffensiveness and non-violence. The Pali commentators define metta as the strong wish for the welfare and happiness of others (parahita-parasukha-kamana). Essentially metta is an altruistic attitude of love and friendliness as distinguished from mere amiability based on self-interest. Through metta one refuses to be offensive and renounces bitterness, resentment and animosity of every kind, developing instead a mind of friendliness, accommodativeness and benevolence which seeks the well-being and happiness of others. True metta is devoid of self-interest. It evokes within a warm-hearted feeling of fellowship, sympathy and love, which grows boundless with practice and overcomes all social, religious, racial, political and economic barriers. Metta is indeed a universal, unselfish and all-embracing love.
Metta makes one a pure font of well-being and safety for others. Just as a mother gives her own life to protect her child, so metta only gives and never wants anything in return. To promote one's own interest is a primordial motivation of human nature. When this urge is transformed into the desire to promote the interest and happiness of others, not only is the basic urge of self-seeking overcome, but the mind becomes universal by identifying its own interest with the interest of all. By making this change one also promotes one's own well-being in the best possible manner.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/buddharakkhita/wheel365.html
More on metta at; http://info.med.yale.edu/psych/3s/metta.html
(I see metta in the life of Christ.)
So I close this ramble to you,
with metta
While trying to arrange a retreat or visit at the Nan Tien Temple
http://www.nantien.org.au/
my email from there ended "with metta"
I did not know what metta was so I looked it up:
The Pali word metta is a multi-significant term meaning loving-kindness, friendliness, goodwill, benevolence, fellowship, amity, concord, inoffensiveness and non-violence. The Pali commentators define metta as the strong wish for the welfare and happiness of others (parahita-parasukha-kamana). Essentially metta is an altruistic attitude of love and friendliness as distinguished from mere amiability based on self-interest. Through metta one refuses to be offensive and renounces bitterness, resentment and animosity of every kind, developing instead a mind of friendliness, accommodativeness and benevolence which seeks the well-being and happiness of others. True metta is devoid of self-interest. It evokes within a warm-hearted feeling of fellowship, sympathy and love, which grows boundless with practice and overcomes all social, religious, racial, political and economic barriers. Metta is indeed a universal, unselfish and all-embracing love.
Metta makes one a pure font of well-being and safety for others. Just as a mother gives her own life to protect her child, so metta only gives and never wants anything in return. To promote one's own interest is a primordial motivation of human nature. When this urge is transformed into the desire to promote the interest and happiness of others, not only is the basic urge of self-seeking overcome, but the mind becomes universal by identifying its own interest with the interest of all. By making this change one also promotes one's own well-being in the best possible manner.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/buddharakkhita/wheel365.html
More on metta at; http://info.med.yale.edu/psych/3s/metta.html
(I see metta in the life of Christ.)
So I close this ramble to you,
with metta
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
HELP ME, dear God,
to see my brother with the eyes of Christ,
to hear my sister with the ears of Christ,
to taste my neighbor’s hunger with the mouth of Christ,
to smell creation’s beauty with the nose of Christ,
to touch the world’s pain with the hands of Christ
and to love life, each life, every life,
with the heart of Christ.
- Sam Hamilton-Poore
Earth Gospel: A Guide to Prayer for God’s Creation
From p. 79 of Earth Gospel by Sam Hamilton-Poore.
Copyright © 2008 by the author.
Upper Room Books.
to see my brother with the eyes of Christ,
to hear my sister with the ears of Christ,
to taste my neighbor’s hunger with the mouth of Christ,
to smell creation’s beauty with the nose of Christ,
to touch the world’s pain with the hands of Christ
and to love life, each life, every life,
with the heart of Christ.
- Sam Hamilton-Poore
Earth Gospel: A Guide to Prayer for God’s Creation
From p. 79 of Earth Gospel by Sam Hamilton-Poore.
Copyright © 2008 by the author.
Upper Room Books.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Do this
UMCOR Issues $200,000 Challenge Grant for Sierra Leone Mosquito Nets
Bethesda, MD, May 7, 2009—United Methodists are taking on a new challenge to provide every child under five years-old in Sierra Leone with a long-lasting insecticide treated bed net. These nets will provide protection from malaria for those most vulnerable to the deadly disease. To kick off the effort to raise sufficient funds for the proposed November 2009 net distribution, the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) is issuing a $200,000 challenge grant from its newly-established Anne Ryckman Fund. UMCOR President, Bishop Janice Riggle Huie of Houston announced the grant and the challenge to the denomination's Council of Bishops, meeting in Bethesda, Maryland on May 6. The challenge is to United Methodist annual (regional) conferences and districts to match the funds. Many bishops responded to the challenge with personal donations totaling more than $1,000.
Conferences to Answer the Challenge
Several annual conferences are likely to step up to the plate with gifts to match the $200,000 challenge by the June 30 deadline. This will be a significant step towards meeting the need for 1.2 million nets in Sierra Leone. "Our hope is to make a miracle of multiplication happen," Sam Dixon, UMCOR's top executive, said of the challenge grant. "We have an opportunity to directly save the lives of thousands in Sierra Leone, if we can act now." The needed quantity of nets needed for this campaign are available for purchase this summer and will not be available in this amount again until 2011. Malaria will take the lives of some 80,000 more people in that time. By answering this call to action United Methodists have the opportunity to save lives that would otherwise be lost to malaria.
Integrated Campaign to Save Lives
The net distribution will be part of a national measles vaccination campaign in partnership with the International Federation of the Red Cross, United Nations Foundation, and The United Methodist Church. UMCOR will play a key role in coordinating the net distribution and training malaria educators who will be at United Methodist distribution sites. In total, approximately $2 million will be needed to purchase, train and distribute these nets. United Methodists have already contributed significantly to this effort through their gifts to Nothing But Nets, including a generous donation from the German Central Conference's 2008 Christmas offering that brought 100,000 Euros for use in Sierra Leone. At least $500,000 more will need to be given by June 30, 2009, to purchase a sufficient quantity of nets in time for the November distribution. "We are challenging United Methodists everywhere to help us bring an end to malaria's misery in Sierra Leone," said Dixon. Every Nothing But Nets gift given through UMCOR Advance #982015 up until June 30 will be counted towards the Ryckman Challenge Grant and will go to support the Sierra Leone net distribution.
The Ryckman Fund
"Ms. Ryckman had a passion to help others and left a legacy through her $1.7 million endowment gift to UMCOR," said Dixon. This is the first use of the funds she bequeathed to UMCOR. Her home church, St Paul's United Methodist in Grand Rapids, Mich., has been in close contact with UMCOR regarding the use of these funds and will continue to be involved in the use of the balance. "As a congregation, we are honored to be able to direct these dollars toward such an important cause and relief efforts in Sierra Leone," wrote Pat Clifford, St. Paul's UMC mission chairperson in a recent email to Dixon.
How You Can Help
Take up the challenge to cover Sierra Leone with bed nets and save thousands of lives. Give today to Nothing But Nets, UMCOR Advance #982015. Every gift to this Advance between now and June 30, 2009, will go to save lives in Sierra Leone.
Bethesda, MD, May 7, 2009—United Methodists are taking on a new challenge to provide every child under five years-old in Sierra Leone with a long-lasting insecticide treated bed net. These nets will provide protection from malaria for those most vulnerable to the deadly disease. To kick off the effort to raise sufficient funds for the proposed November 2009 net distribution, the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) is issuing a $200,000 challenge grant from its newly-established Anne Ryckman Fund. UMCOR President, Bishop Janice Riggle Huie of Houston announced the grant and the challenge to the denomination's Council of Bishops, meeting in Bethesda, Maryland on May 6. The challenge is to United Methodist annual (regional) conferences and districts to match the funds. Many bishops responded to the challenge with personal donations totaling more than $1,000.
Conferences to Answer the Challenge
Several annual conferences are likely to step up to the plate with gifts to match the $200,000 challenge by the June 30 deadline. This will be a significant step towards meeting the need for 1.2 million nets in Sierra Leone. "Our hope is to make a miracle of multiplication happen," Sam Dixon, UMCOR's top executive, said of the challenge grant. "We have an opportunity to directly save the lives of thousands in Sierra Leone, if we can act now." The needed quantity of nets needed for this campaign are available for purchase this summer and will not be available in this amount again until 2011. Malaria will take the lives of some 80,000 more people in that time. By answering this call to action United Methodists have the opportunity to save lives that would otherwise be lost to malaria.
Integrated Campaign to Save Lives
The net distribution will be part of a national measles vaccination campaign in partnership with the International Federation of the Red Cross, United Nations Foundation, and The United Methodist Church. UMCOR will play a key role in coordinating the net distribution and training malaria educators who will be at United Methodist distribution sites. In total, approximately $2 million will be needed to purchase, train and distribute these nets. United Methodists have already contributed significantly to this effort through their gifts to Nothing But Nets, including a generous donation from the German Central Conference's 2008 Christmas offering that brought 100,000 Euros for use in Sierra Leone. At least $500,000 more will need to be given by June 30, 2009, to purchase a sufficient quantity of nets in time for the November distribution. "We are challenging United Methodists everywhere to help us bring an end to malaria's misery in Sierra Leone," said Dixon. Every Nothing But Nets gift given through UMCOR Advance #982015 up until June 30 will be counted towards the Ryckman Challenge Grant and will go to support the Sierra Leone net distribution.
The Ryckman Fund
"Ms. Ryckman had a passion to help others and left a legacy through her $1.7 million endowment gift to UMCOR," said Dixon. This is the first use of the funds she bequeathed to UMCOR. Her home church, St Paul's United Methodist in Grand Rapids, Mich., has been in close contact with UMCOR regarding the use of these funds and will continue to be involved in the use of the balance. "As a congregation, we are honored to be able to direct these dollars toward such an important cause and relief efforts in Sierra Leone," wrote Pat Clifford, St. Paul's UMC mission chairperson in a recent email to Dixon.
How You Can Help
Take up the challenge to cover Sierra Leone with bed nets and save thousands of lives. Give today to Nothing But Nets, UMCOR Advance #982015. Every gift to this Advance between now and June 30, 2009, will go to save lives in Sierra Leone.
updates
The occasional ramble;
The maple tree has littered the front yard with a heavy crop of seeds.
Our temps actually got over 70!
It is graduation night for BHS and Nick is there in some music capacity. He is only a junior but for him too, it is the last night at BHS as he goes to Perpich Arts HS in the fall..
Annual conference is over and I always see that as the mark that summer is ready to begin.
At church we are gearing up for Vacation Bible School with over 100 kids registered. Thanks to Betty J!!!!!
And oh yeh, I am trying to work ahead for my time away in Australia and New Zealand!
Last Saturday I bought an old chest of drawers and I have enjoyed the refinishing. I think it might head to the dorm for Nick in the fall. In the mean time it will serve as my sermon illustration for this Sunday. I know I am supposed to preach on the Trinity but I would rather talk about the chest of drawers and my refinishing.
I would like to know that I am treated like that antique rummage sale furniture. I would like to think that beneath my scratches, stains, abuses and aging there is still something great beneath the surface. There is something of me that takes on the years of surface wear and poor repair attempts , yet is still a thing of beauty, character and worth. In the church, is that what we call the soul?
I think God is always able to see that in us. We are not just our exteriors. Can we see it in each other? Can we see it with the eyes of the one who “restoreth my soul” and is able to take the cracks and marks and refinish it to another level of richness and character. We are each a child of God and God’s spirit bears witness to our witness that we are children of God. I think that means that God looks at me the way I look at the old dresser, and sees what is really there.
Thanks for reading. Come back soon and often. I enjoy checking the site meter to see who stopped by even though some of the location info seems strange. When it reads my own Brainerd visit it shows up as Buffalo!
The maple tree has littered the front yard with a heavy crop of seeds.
Our temps actually got over 70!
It is graduation night for BHS and Nick is there in some music capacity. He is only a junior but for him too, it is the last night at BHS as he goes to Perpich Arts HS in the fall..
Annual conference is over and I always see that as the mark that summer is ready to begin.
At church we are gearing up for Vacation Bible School with over 100 kids registered. Thanks to Betty J!!!!!
And oh yeh, I am trying to work ahead for my time away in Australia and New Zealand!
Last Saturday I bought an old chest of drawers and I have enjoyed the refinishing. I think it might head to the dorm for Nick in the fall. In the mean time it will serve as my sermon illustration for this Sunday. I know I am supposed to preach on the Trinity but I would rather talk about the chest of drawers and my refinishing.
I would like to know that I am treated like that antique rummage sale furniture. I would like to think that beneath my scratches, stains, abuses and aging there is still something great beneath the surface. There is something of me that takes on the years of surface wear and poor repair attempts , yet is still a thing of beauty, character and worth. In the church, is that what we call the soul?
I think God is always able to see that in us. We are not just our exteriors. Can we see it in each other? Can we see it with the eyes of the one who “restoreth my soul” and is able to take the cracks and marks and refinish it to another level of richness and character. We are each a child of God and God’s spirit bears witness to our witness that we are children of God. I think that means that God looks at me the way I look at the old dresser, and sees what is really there.
Thanks for reading. Come back soon and often. I enjoy checking the site meter to see who stopped by even though some of the location info seems strange. When it reads my own Brainerd visit it shows up as Buffalo!
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
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