Ganeida's Knots

Yes, it really is that bad...

2012-01-30T16:49:00.000-08:00

The premise is that if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death.~Mr Wiki

We all know the story of how to cook a frog. The frog is our education system & the water's been heating up so gently the majority have been lulled into a false sense that things are pretty ok & pretty much just like when we went to school. OK, so we know that numeracy & literacy levels are down but we just need to get the kids of the computer ~ or perhaps we just need to change our expectations for a computer literate society. Either way there's not much wrong. Not really. Anyone who homeschools has gotta be ever so slightly out of their teensy little Chinese mind.

So here is the thing. I don't do the political thing. I know there's a political agenda to all this. I do my reading & keep in touch but you can argue politics till the cows come home & people will still sit on the same side of the fence they started on. Nope it's much more personal for me, far more experiential, because we sent our kids to school. Not my idea! Even 20 years ago I had issues but Dearest wasn't in favour & so ours dutifully toddled along to the local school, which was a tiny 2 teacher affair with about a whole 30 students across 7 grades. And because I was a good & dutiful mummy I signed up as a helper ~ not in the tuckshop. Heaven forfend! I don't do food. Nope, I trained for the reading program. Then I trained for the writing program. I even trained for the math program. For 10 years I worked the numeracy & literacy program at our local primary school & however bad you think things are, believe me, they are that bad. Actually they are probably worse than you ever imagined because our government in it's infinite wisdom has turned our schools into a toothless tiger. They are unable to discipline & so the kids have turned them into a laughing stock. They know full well there's really nothing the schools can do to them.

Ok, I was working the remedial program so I got to see first hand just how bad this can be. I worked with the older children because some of the boys were so out of hand others were frightened of them. I was not. Most of them were super clever kids bored & frustrated beyond endurance. I worked with grades 5, 6 & 7, ages10~13. I had kids with no phonics ~ no decoding reading skills at all, who couldn't even read at a grade 2 level. How do you do grade 5 work when you can't read your instructions, let alone understand them? Bad, but ok. Most of these kids had good reason for being behind: sickness, interstate moves, travel, learning problems but then someone decided it would be a really good move to give their good readers some read aloud practise & sent them out to me for some one~on~one reading time. BIG mistake. Remember these kids weren't considered poor readers. This was the cream of the crop, the bright kids who were considered to be doing well academically & they weren't beginning readers, yet child after child came unstuck on words like: abbreviation, abdication, abduction, aberration, abjection, ablation, ablution, station, stationary, fruition ~ how do you get to grade 5 & not know *ion says shon*? I was apalled. And that was the easy stuff. It was about then I twigged that if I wanted my kids to read well I was going to have to do the work myself ~ & I did. It's why Star never went to kindy. Why should she compete with 25~30 other littlies when I could give her all her pre~reading skills one~on~one at home? I didn't expect her to read. That was not my intent & purpose but hey! Guess what? She learnt to read in about 6 weeks of 10 minutes or less a day.

And here's the thing; poor readers are usually poor writers. Good readers generally write well. They have a good grasp of literary usage. They understand how language is put together on paper because they read it. Don't get me started on math! Star's concret, everyday math is excellent ~ far better than mine, & I taught her. I found what motivated her & went with it. We had no math problems until the experts started meddling & accssed the child of cheating~ at which point said child dug in her heels & refused to co~operate any further.

How did we get into such a mess? We gave children rights but did not require a corresponding sense of responsibility. So here's some of what I witnessed first hand in the playground because I was there at the time: a child try to push my son's head through the iron bars of the verandah railing [required 7 staples]; my high achieving athlete bullied unmercifully by younger girls [only when I threatened to remove said child which would have resulted in a monetary loss for the school was this issue resolved]; knives in school bags; one child arrived with dad's gun minus the cartridge thingy; A child throw pine cones at a teacher's face [drew blood; we were told it would go no further as the paperwork wasn't worth it & the parents, who were not there at the time, abused the teachers for inciting their son to violence; they didn't]; a child write F---on the sole of one shoe & YOU on the other. Every time he didn't want to do something he put his feet up on the desk & his epitaph in the teacher's face. I have been asked to not enter a classroom because the class teacher felt they could not guarantee my safety. I have heard children use words I don't even know the meaning of & utter threats against teachers' personal safety.

Oh well, you might be thinking, you live in a low socio~economic area. These things happen. Nope. I went to an exclusive private girls school, which I hated, & I would stand in assembly Monday morning while the money went down the line one way & the drugs came back up. I listened to 12 & 13 years olds recount their sexual exploits over the weekend. [That was an education!] We had girls flipping out on acid ~ & the teachers wondered why I was always reading a book under my desk. Far safer than the real world! But that at least was high school.

The difference is the escalation in violence, drug usage, sexual exploits at increasingly younger ages. I remember chatting with one lad who was yawning his way through yet another lesson & always seemed to be tired about the whys only to be informed he'd been up half the night smoking pot & watching t.v. He didn't even blush at the admission. I did that for him. I have worked with girls not yet out of primary school who were sexually active ~ & proud of it. I've watched kids sit through classes & not do a tap of work. When I mentioned this to their teachers I was told there will always be those kids who will slip through the cracks.

You might think my experience was with a particularly poor school, bad teachers. You would be wrong. The teachers were wonderful, very dedicated. They tried hard within the constraints of the education department. They employed people to cater for those struggling & for their gifted students. They subsidised excursions & camps but I started timing the amount of time wasted each day on discipline, lining up, issuing instructions, resolving problems & it was in the hours each & every day! A class was lucky to get a full hour of instruction time on any given day.

High school is even worse because the kids are bigger & so many of them do not really want to be there. They are over school but required to be there by law. Locally, on any day of the week, you will find the shopping centres full of kids from every school in the shire who have simply walked out of class & are wandering round the shops till it is time to catch the bus home.

I do not wonder why people homeschool. I do wonder how any loving parent can subject their children to the sort of *education* I have seen in our schools. Even when Star was pressuring me, even when it would have been so much easier to give in & send her to the local high, there was never any question in my mind that however hard it got, however difficult Star decided to be, however bad I was as a teacher, Star was far, far better of at home. I have seen our schools. They are not a pretty sight ~ & most of it will never make the news headlines ~ but that is part of the political agenda & I did say I wasn't going there!

Dithering....

2012-01-30T02:34:00.000-08:00

Nobody wanted to be a Pommy. Pommies might be gallant in wartime, but they had an unfortunate ancestry. They were descended from all the people who had declined to found America and Canada and South Africa and New Zealand and Australia ~R. Stowe

Some time in the next few days Star & I resume school. Her last year, a last chance to share & so I have been scanning my bookshelves to see what is there that I just know I am going to love reading aloud to her & that I hope Star will love as much as I do. I have picked Randolph Stowe's The Merry~go~Round in the Sea.

Do you know this book? I have owed a copy for years & periodically I reread it for the pure pleasure of the language used by someone who knows how to use English. It is a most beautiful book ~ but then Stowe is a published poet as well as a novelist.

I have heard this book described as a *coming of age* story ~ which does not in the least do it justice! It is far more than that. It is one of the most evocative books I have ever read ~ partly, I suspect, because my experience of family was very similar. I came at the tail end of one generation yet was closer in age to my cousins of the next generation, crossing boundaries & experiencing both the closeness & the inevitable pulling away, the history & stories & clannishness of a people who are secure in who they are, where they have come from & what they believe. For a child it is mesmerizing & the deep core stability generates a feeling of strength, invincibility & security. Stowe captures this in his central character, 6 year old Rob.

Rob's world is idyllic & part of Stowe's magic is his ability to capture the sights & sounds & smells so richly that one can read his words with the sense that one could find their way blind~fold through this world. Inevitably the world as Rob thinks it is is revealed to be something else entirely. Beyond Geralton & the family station the Second World War rages. It consumes Rob's favourite cousin, Rick, unravelling everything Rob once believed until, like the merry~go~round in the sea, the cruel light of day reveals an uglier, less kind world that had always existed, lovingly hidden by the blight of family loyality.

One of Stowe's strengths is his ability to show things as they are without preaching. Thus Rick's struggle to fit back into an Australia that was determinedly provincial, narrow~minded, bigoted & claustrophobic is unsentimental; Rob is sentimental. It is he who clings to a vision of a world that only ever really existed in his own mind but oh! it is a beautiful world!

Knowing my Star she will hate everything about this book but it's one of those books everyone should have read at least once in their lifetime ~ like To kill a Mockingbird. Some books are just too good not to share.

Not what I was expecting?

2012-01-29T15:13:00.000-08:00

And you're gonna make it

You're gonna make it after all

Did they hurt you ?

Was it worth it after all ?

Worth it after all ? ~ Garrison Starr

So what happened with the fast? Honestly, the woman has a flibberty~gibbert mind, can't concentrate on anything for 2 minutes at a time! Well, actually I can, just other things got in the way. It gets complicated because you can't hold God to ransom & I reached a point towards the end when I really wondered what I was doing ~ besides missing out on some really good food [& who did steal my cornetto out of the freezer anyway?!] & getting rattier & rattier as I tried to juggle the complicated mess my life suddenly became.

Fasting is interesting because it is never what you think it is going to be when you begin your fast. I had a long list of things I wanted to lay before the Lord ~ family things & there are some of you who have asked me to pray for specific needs at different times; anything still unresolved went down on the table again, but just because I wanted to talk about stuff didn't mean that was what was on the Lord's mind. Uh, uh.

One of the things I wanted to talk to the Lord about was Dino because Dino felt he was supposed to be in bible school & heading into some sort of ministry. Confirmed all round as we all went into prayer about this with Dino but over the years Dino has made some really poor choices which naturally came back to bite him ferociously on the bum so although the spirit was willing there were some major roadblocks in his way: still on his learners, no savings, no bible college...yadda yadda & I really thought the Lord would be more interested in having a chat about the whole sorry mess, don'tcha know but nada. The Lord wanted to talk to me about stuff in my life ~ & no, I did not want to talk about that. I'm just dull. My sins aren't of the spectacular variety. I mean if you're determined to be a sinner you should be the best sinner possible don't you think? Ok, maybe that's a little out there...

Anyway Someone had mentioned Rhema to us & we went visiting because we still aren't real settled in a church. We went to the Friday night service because nights work for us & Dearest & I both went "Sabbath!" & thought it was a really great way to begin our Sabbath. [This is to do with the fast. Be patient.] Rhema has a bible college attached & within minutes of mentioning our interest someone was dragging Dino away to chat about it some more & give him the paperwork to look over & make sure he knew when classes began. Dearest was keen on church. I went hmmm.....I'm the cautious sort when it comes to churches. Star was freaking because half the youth group surrounded her & asked the Dreaded Question: So which school do you go to? Then Star & I went away.

Dino had been at great pains to remind me that often the blessing doesn't happen during a fast. It happens after & here is what has been happening after: Dino's driving manual got passed so I rang & booked Dino's test; the test is for the day his first class starts so we will be over on the mainland anyway; It is booked for the time we arrive back in the shire & was the first available time; His tax return will be exactly what he needs to cover his tuition & books; the course is Centre~link accredited so he will have a small income & can put fuel in my mainland car; Classes don't clash with Star's stuff; I will have to go with him to orientation & the first day [please pray he passes his test or we will have a major nightmare on our hands!!!] but the first thing that got said to me [remembering I'm a lurker & it was Dearest who was getting all excited & chatting to people] was, Why aren't you taking classes too? Umm....I have Star....Now Dino is talking about when I can start classes & Dearest is juggling money so I can start classes. What is with this? I haven't even asked the Lord about it yet!

So we toddled back on Sunday with all Dino's paperwork & went to Sunday morning service. Dearest is happy. Star's half~asleep; mornings are not her thing. I was prepared to endure some truly awful music & ho~hum preaching. Saying I was a reluctant participant is putting it mildly. Not that I had said anything because Dearest is the spiritual head, right?, & there was a good bit more at stake that a Sunday morning church service but I had a real heaviness of spirit & a migraine kicking in, so thrilled to bits I was not.

I know about corporate worship. The key word is worship ~ not corporate & after about 5 minutes of being majorly distracted by the hand waving & the clapping & the general bibbing & bobbing about to music I didn't know & didn't appreciate I felt the Lord say, Well, why don't you sit down, shut your eyes & worship as usual. Lightbulb moment ~ so I did. The music bothered me far less & I let the actual words minister to me. I just became a non~participatory participant. Then the preaching began. Yes! For the first time in a long time I wasn't screaming inside at getting fed slop, or worse, incorrect slop. Do I have a critical spirit? You betcha! Our critical faculties were given to us for a reason. It's misapplying them is the problem.

So this is Dino's last week landscaping. On Saturday he goes to orientation. On Monday he begins classes. And this is how I know our God is a God of miracles: Dino hated school & doesn't even have a year 10 leaving certificate. All he ever wanted to do was fish ~ for which he didn't need school. It's taken a shattered shoulder & some serious disciplinary action on the Lord's part but the Lord finally got his attention & now has him where He wants him to be! One by one the Lord is mowing our lot down to keep the promise He made to me that His word would not depart from our house & that all of our children would be taught of Him. Blessed be the name of the Lord God Almighty.

An Australia Day Interlude.

2012-01-27T03:20:00.000-08:00

That's my wife; she's the lemon ~ The Dish.

It began to rain within minutes of us walking through my mother's front door ~ & it continued to rain solidly all week. I like rain but enough is enough & there is no escaping the fact it severely restricted our activities because no~one wanted to drive in the sort of monsoonal downpour that engulfed us all week.

Australia Day was our first sort of dry day; our only dry day in fact. We made the most of the sprinkle & headed out. First we popped into the Leisure Centre to view The Dish ~ a movie we have all seen before but it takes such a quirky & gently satirical jab at the best & worst of Australia [& our love/hate relationship with America] that I still laugh myself silly. It is full of brilliant one~liners. And who can forget the sight of the Aussie scientists playing cricket in the dish to level it up? Or the Ambassador's face as the band plays Hawaii Five~O thinking it's the American National Anthem?

[ Do you remember the Moon Walk? Where were you? We were dragged out of class to watch the grainy & impossible images & I was very bored. I think I sorta missed the point.]

Then it was on to Trader Dukes for lunch. Star was the only one able to manage dessert on top of mains ~ a mudcake that had Ma rolling her eyes & Star in seventh heaven.

Despite the fact lunch wasn't even interrupted by a light sprinkle the lowering clouds kept threatening something more serious so we cautiously went for a wander along the Maroochy River & through the caravan park. Not to my taste maybe but the long term residents certainly get points in my book for creativity. This lot went Hawaiian...

but this lot thought going for another Big Queensland thing [& seeing as pineapples & such like were already taken] opted for The Big Boot. Whatever rocks your boat.

All along the river, & then the beach, the water was a fetid & putrid brown with ugly yellow scum. The sand was littered with all sorts of debris that drew the kids like magnets. We saw tepees & pirate ships made from the scraps but the jagged timber floating in the water just looked nasty ~ & this was after the clean~up crews had been through. The colour of the water was a shark's dream come true. Not the sort of water to swim in ~ but people were!

We beat the rain home ~ just. Not that we let the rain bother us. We played Racing Demon, Rummikub, table tennis, pool & darts. We did jig~saws. We talked a lot & we ate a lot. We drank hot chocolate & nibbled on Ma's Christmas shortbread, saved for our visit.

Today we came home. Star drove. I don't know what RACQ was thinking but their web site failed to notify us that the southbound lanes of the Bruce Highway were under water at Donnybrooke. We crawled at 5mph for over an hour, got diverted, got screamed at & honked at by an irate truck driver [gotta love that road rage because none of his anger was going to make the traffic move any faster], got rained on some more & finally crawled in our own door to find that somehow the cats knew I was coming home today & were beside themselves with anticipation.

We love our Ma. ♥♥♥

2012-01-23T12:24:00.000-08:00

. Great Rummikub players are the ones who can enter that zen state where they can just look at all those numbers and then start flying around moving things around until poof, they win.~Clint Walker.

The rain is raining. True, it's our wet season but the rain puts the beach & the bush both out of bounds. The beach is just unpleasant but the bush is full of leeches. Perhaps to short circuit the Star yodelling the whole village into insanity my mother dragged out the Rummikub tiles & suggested we play a round or two. Growing up the family game of choice was 500 & I can still play a mean hand of 500 but despite the number of children we own, as a family we have never been much into board games & what was played tended to be chess. We had our own tournament going through any wet holidays though inevitably Liddy & Dino were wiped out fairly quickly & the tin tacks came down to Theo & Joss who were both incredibly competitive & stubborn.

I'm not sure my mother will ever ask Star & I to play Rummikub again. Have you ever played? If so you will know all the little tiles have numbers on them. That alone is enough to do my head in but nothing loath I was prepared to have a go despite the fact, like Gin, you need a run & 3o points to go down. If I have to count above 10 I'm in trouble ~ so I was in trouble before the first tile went down. My mother does not normally have trouble with numbers but I think Star & I have done for her, Star & I both being *numerically challenged*. Star became completely dyslexic & incapable of putting any of her tiles down in sequence because she knew what she meant. Sadly this lack of sequencing did not bother me ~ but then I was chronically putting down runs that were missing essential numbers in the sequencing. Let's just say it was not Star who noticed!

Naturally my mother cleaned the pair of us up with very little trouble.

Meanwhile the men are holding down the fort & attempting to comfort two cats who have completely lost the plot & blame Dearest, or so Dearest says, for my absence.

2012-01-21T12:59:00.000-08:00

Well, it's a marvellous night for a moon dance,
With the stars up above in your eyes....Moon Dance: Van Morrison

We are spending a few day with my mum up on the Sunshine Coast ~ minus the sunshine! Star drove us up after her audition, & did a very nice job of it too ~ the driving, not the audition.

I think her audition piece went all right. She sang Van Morrison's Moon Dance ~ a song she had to lift about an octave for her voice but she is still cracking & disappearing all over the place & had to work very hard in the days prior to have some chance of it sounding even reasonably ok, which she says it did. Both Dimitri & Alison were auditioning. Star was rather tempted to do Figaro & take of Dimitri because it is a piece that lends itself to being taken off rather beautifully but she restrained her impulses! Apparently she got a very nice Jazz/bluesy/classical feel to it. Not sure if that means she's versatial or just all over the place! Her sight reading was a disaster!!! She couldn't pitch her voice anywhere near where she knew the notes should go although she could hear them perfectly well in her head. And people think singing is easy! How little they know!

We arrived up north a lot earlier than we were expecting to, about mid~afternoon, so squeezed in an afternoon walk around the village admiring everybody's gardens before the rain belted down in true tropical torrential downpour! And I break my fast this morning.Yay! I am looking forward to breakfast. Fruit & yoghurt ~ & coffee! How I have missed my coffee. Have a blessed weekend peeps & we'll see you on the other side.

This & that.

2012-01-17T17:52:00.000-08:00

Star & I were up waaay too late last night watching the SBS movie we came in halfway through so I don't know the name. I do know it was French & let's just say I have a weakness for French movies.

My understanding of French is semi~reasonable ~ depending. You know how it is. Some days the brain just won't fire & recall vocabulary. Anyway I am not as completely reliant on the sub~titles as Star is: she gave up around mid~night.

However part way through & before Star abandoned me to my fate we heard a rattling round the kitchen area & on investigation, in case we needed a cat to deal with an unwanted intruder, we discovered the most humongous green tree frog I have seen in ages., all covered with cat hair & dust he'd collected from scrabbling round on our floors. We admired him & shoved him out the door having no idea at all how he managed to get in in the first place.

I am down to the last few days of my fast & all of a sudden I just want it to be over. The psychological aspects always seem to be the hardest for me to deal with but at the same time Ezekiel was rabbiting on about cubits & however often I did the conversion I just couldn't hold the numbers in my head. Now there's a conversion you would think the translators would just make. Why wouldn't you? Especially for people like me who still think in imperial despite the fact we converted to metric back in 1966 while I was still at school. I didn't convert then & still think in feet & inches so what hope have I got with cubits?

Now it's not that I'm physically hungry; I'm not. I'm feeling pretty good physically with that lovely clarity of mind fasting brings but I am just tired of being out of routine & having to make all these adjustments because of the fast. The temptation is to pack it in early so I am hunkering down in the hope that this too shall pass & the last few days will be beneficial. After all we are done with the cubits for now so at least my reading shouldn't be so fraught.

Reuse, Recycle, Refurbish.

2012-01-16T03:27:00.000-08:00

My hobby of not attending meetings about recycling saves more energy than your hobby of recycling. ~ John McCarthy

When Liddy came home to school I gave up my desk so that she had somewhere to study. Being a kinesthetic learner she was rarely to be found at it but the drawers accumulated a variety of her junk & the top served as a clothing depository. Meanwhile Star, who also deigns to use a desk, ditched her secretariat, which moved into my bedroom & served the useful purpose of holding a variety of writing paper & the presents no~one is supposed to know about. Meanwhile I used Star's outgrown desk with it's world map sprawled across its surface & strangely convex top but I missed my desk. For one thing it was a present from my parents. For another it had working drawers. Thirdly it was longer rather than wide which suits how I work much better & allows for whichever psychotic cat needs the close comfort of my presence to perch alongside of me without either of us getting in the other's way.

Now Dino is looking at some serious study & is working his way down a list of theological colleges who may, or may not, offer the sort of course he is interested in. He is looking here at present. We like this one as it is close to home which means he isn't travelling forever & can borrow the shared mainland car without causing major disruptions. So as the rain was belting down this morning & Dino got an unexpected day off work we did a major recycling job. I cleared out Liddy's desk & dragged it out into my space freeing the desk I had been using for Dino, which he gratefully lugged upstairs ~ & I have my own desk back! I believe I've been possessive about my things from an early age. My mother tells the story of returning from a holiday only to have me march round the house proclaiming, My house. My bed. My chair. etc

And you remember Star did the Gatton thing? Well Star arrived home with some rosemary growing in one of those tacky seedling pots because at the close of the service everyone was encouraged to take a pot of rosemary in memory of the floods & those who perished in them. Each pot had a little tag. Star's was rather appropriate we thought.

The problem of course is that if I plant it in the garden Star can't take it with her & rather than go out & buy yet another pot I have been considering an alternative. When my mother moved house she passed along to us a most delightful set of spice jars ~ which we have never actually used. They don't make very good spice jars so they have been sitting in a cupboard while I worked up the courage to pass them along. I think they would make beautiful & attractive herb pots because I have inherited a terrible family failing & there is always something [several somethings] sprouting in a peculiar variety of jars on my windowsills.

I know rosemary grows into a rather big bush if let go but kept pruned & indoors it should do ok in one of these small jars & we can get the pleasure of them without feeling guilty they serve no useful purpose. If it works [& gosh I hope I don't kill Star's special plant off!] I may do the entire collection. What do you think?

2012-01-15T15:38:00.000-08:00

We can't cross that bridge until we come to it, but I always like to lay down a pontoon ahead of time. ~ Bernard Baruch

It is wet. It is cold. The wind is scything across the bay & I am snuggled into a jacket & draped with the brown checked rug you can zip up like a coat that my mother gave me one Christmas.

It was overcast & showery yesterday too but nowhere near as cold & the lad went off to play cricket on the island oval where the sight of dolphins lazily cruising down the channel generally generates more interest than the game.

I arrived in time to watch Dino lob a six & a couple of fours around the oval before being caught out on the boundary but by then, naturally, we were running late. The boat we should have been on had left before Dino was out of the shower so we went to church in the tinnie. This is not a major deal. I make sure I'm not all dolled up. Depending on traffic & where the car got left last time someone was over, the wind & tide et al I might find myself cumbersomely climbing ladders, clambering out onto a beach, the rocks & slippery ramp of the boat ramp or bouncing onto one of several pontoons. Last night it was a pontoon.

Given my drathers, I'd drather the ladder & a stable jetty to cling to ~ especially if the weather is a bit rough, as it was last night. There are 2 patches that are dodgy on the bay. One is the Ws between 2 of the islands where tide & current battle the wind & the channel froths & bubbles like a witch's cauldron. The other is the entrance to the marina which narrows artificially into a man made channel that periodically silts up & tends to be shallow & unstable.

Dino chose to tie up at the old pontoon. It's further up the channel & generally more stable. I am not a big fan of the pontoon thing. I've seen too many near catastrophes on the things. Last night I was a victim of said pontoon though in all honesty I was at fault for badly misjudging the shift in ballast as I clambered out of the boat. I am now sporting a massive bruise on my foot where it caught the gunnel & a stinging scrape along the bone. I am feeling sore & sorry for myself.

Just the same, there is nothing quite like being out on the open water under a big night sky to make you appreciate the awesomeness of God & just how small & ignorant you are.

A Little Light Reading.

2012-01-13T17:06:00.000-08:00

Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just? Genesis

My specific reading at the moment is Ezekiel ~ he of the dry bones set dancing up out of the dust of the ages ~ & don't you just love that visual imagery. Ezekiel is all about idolatry & how much God hates it, about how the nations about Israel will be reduced to nothing & less than nothing for rejoicing over Israel's downfall, & about the faithfulness of God. It is probably the only time in my life I have read all of this book sequentially. I tend to dance around, bob back & forth, & read completely out of sequence so I have found reading it through straight, from beginning to end, hard going.

The 2nd commandment addresses the issue of idolatry & yet from beginning to end Israel's besetting sin is idolatry. I'm a fast reader ~ which is what happens when you spend 3 years of your life wading as fast as possible through impossible texts so you can write a not very enlightened paper about them, so I had got about 3/4 of the way through scratching my head because we all know idolatry is wrong. We all practise it, of course, but we know it's wrong & when we realise we try & do something about it.

There is the whole issue of God's holiness & the glory of His name of course but there is another reason, one that rather shocked me because I tend to think of myself as a little person, someone of no account, & I spend a good bit of my time trying hard to so blend into the background as to neither draw attention to myself nor have to engage in social situations I find difficult & unrewarding. Enter Derek Prince.

I like Prince. On the whole I think he had an excellent grasp of the importance of the middle east to the End Times & the centrality of Israel & the Israelites. I had listened to his preaching for years & found it thorough & vivid but had never had the good fortune to get my hands on one of his books. Not that I was trying over hard, there being so many excellent books around I have yet to read, but last time I was in Koorong I got his On Experiencing God's Power. Weird title but the insides looked ok. Stuff on fasting [which was really good] & tithing, controlling the tongue ~ & holiness. I have a thing about personal holiness because God has been on my case for years about how important it is. What I never really got [except that without it none of us will see God] is why it was so important.

I mean, seriously, I'm a common little garden variety sinner saved by grace. There's a lot of us around & I don't think anyone who knows me really well would choose holiness as an adjective to describe me. Au contraire, mes soeurs. Anyway, Prince is my *light reading* just now. That almost seems like a contradiction in terms but then Prince isn't difficult. Not really. Deep, but not difficult. And because I was reading him on the boat, & in the green room, & tucked up in the back corner of Max Brenner's I was constantly losing my place & reading fairly randomly when I stumbled on his chapters on The Salt of the Earth.

In here Prince lays down the principle established in Genesis when Abraham pleaded for Sodom, starting with: for the sake of 50 righteous men & working his way down to a bare 10, would God not spare the city? Ten righteous men were not to be found & so Abraham & Lot flee the city with their families. In the process Lot asks God a favour because he doesn't think he can make it all the way to the mountains he's been told to retreat to in time. He requests that he be allowed to find refuge in the little village of Zoar.

And what does God say? “Behold, I grant you this favour also, that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken.” For the sake of one righteous man [& make no mistake, Lot was righteous, the bible says so] little Zoar was spared.

Now that is the principle. The application is for us. Remember we have been told we are salt & light. We get sprinkled across our wider communities, usually numerically small, to act as salt. And what does salt do? It acts as an antiseptic to cleanse filth; it aides the prevention of corruption; it is necessary to good health; it adds flavour. For the sake of the righteous on Earth God with holds His judgement but if the salt should lose it's flavour.....

The wider application is that we are a priestly people after the order of Melchizedek, watchmen called to stand in the gap & plead for God's mercies on our communities, to act as an astringent & cleanser, to slow corruption, to aide health etc. So long as we do our job there is still time to reach the unsaved ~ which is one reason why a great apostasy, a great falling away, is necessary before the judgement because there will then be no~one to plead the world's cause.

Prince points out that we are also ambassadors, Christ's representatives on earth, & one of a Nations final acts before declaring all out war is the withdrawal of their aambassadors.

So the question becomes: How much do we care for our unsaved family? Our neighbours? Our communities? Our Nation? Our entire world? For the sake of one righteous man God spared Zoar. Do we care enough to strive after holiness? We are made righteous by the blood of Christ but do we actively pursue it? Are we quick to repent & confess? Are we diligent in working out our salvation? A huge responsibility rests on our shoulders; the fate of the entire world in fact ~ & while Christ will return, let it not be because we have failed in our duty.

2012-01-10T15:53:00.000-08:00

Organized slaughter, we realize, does not settle a dispute; it merely silences an argument. ~James Frederick Green

Our teens are brain deficient. Especially the boys. The frontal lobe of the brain [that area responsible for the ability to judge consequences & control impulses] does not develop until our children are in their twenties. Which begs the question...

Once upon a time, yes, I'm that old, you had to be 21 to enlist in a war. I remember when it changed. Draft Beer, Not People. Make Love, Not War. Join the Army, see the world, meet interesting people - and kill them. Remember the slogans? Our government, in it's wisdom, lowered the drinking age, not raised the conscription age. We now have a lethal cocktail of teens who can both drink & drive yet lack the ability to control their impulses or judge the consequences of their actions.

Which is not my point. Do you know the age God allowed for Jewish men to be sent to war? Yep, 20! [Numbers1:2~3] We should've paid attention 'cause you know who makes the best soldiers, don't you? Children! And there are plenty of countries around the world doing just that: Eastern Europe, large parts of Asia & the Middle East, parts of South America & Africa.

Frankly I think the people who declare war should be the ones made to fight it but as that ain't gonna happen any time soon ['cause these people don't have a teen brain & are perfectly capable of seeing where the consequences of such actions will land them] it seems only reasonable that those on the front line should stand a fighting chance.

My boy is 26. I would hardly say he's fully capable of controlling his impulses or judging the consequences even now. *sigh* Some days living in a fallen world just make me mad. I think today is one of those days.

Checking for Monsters.

2012-01-09T22:42:00.000-08:00

I remember when the candle shop burned down. Everyone stood around singing 'Happy Birthday.' ~Steven Wright.

We all know the Star. She's a bit out there. A bit goofy. She's funny & witty & she lights up our life. Our house was very quiet while she was gone.

It is not, as it so happens, the very first time Star has been away from home while not accompanied by some trusted family member but Alison checked anyway to make sure she'd be ok all alone in her strange hotel room.

"I'll be fine," Star assured her breezily, "Once I've checked for monsters." Alison laughed. She thought the Star was joking. The Star was not. She checked under the bed & in all the cupboards & behind the curtain & the bathroom before she was convinced nothing lurked in some hidden corner that could grab her in the middle of the night. Even so she missed the curlews & the frogs, the bitterns & pheasants that serenade us with our night~time lullabye. Instead she had traffic & people walking past, big trucks & the sound of a busy city.

This morning Dearest & I watched rather besottedly the ABC coverage of the Gatton Memorial Service. For us there was only one performer. Here's Star. If you catch the news coverage of this Star is in the top right hand corner wearing a green shirt ~ & beaming ~ as she always does when she performs.

How to complicate a life.

2012-01-09T13:40:00.000-08:00

Ever since I first ran across the idea of beginning the New Year with a fast the idea grabbed hold of my imagination. There was just something so *right* about the whole concept & so I purposed in my heart that this year I would go for it ~ not because I'm super spiritual or anything like that ~ quite the opposite in fact; & not because I like fasting. I don't. I like the results but getting my get up & go to actually start one takes a rather large spiritual bomb.

It probably helped that due to a combination of circumstances there was far less junk food in my cupboards than is normal for this time of year & I knew that simply starting was going to be the hardest part ~ or so I thought. Unfortunately I do not live to myself alone. Dearest does not believe in fasting & while he will cook the odd meal he dislikes doing it now because my house now consists of 2 semi~vegetarians [one of whom will eat no mushrooms, the other no lentils!], & one on the Daniel Fast.

Food is an issue. Watching me dice vegetables for yet another curry & rice dish Dearest complained loudly that he did not understand anyone drowning the taste of good food in sauce. I tartly replied that he should given the 1/2 inch layer of salt he pours over good food! Ick. Stopped him dead in his tracks because he has never thought that what he does is the least odd.

Now Dino, like my Dearest ~ & Liddy too for that matter, is a confirmed red meat eater. He works in landscaping doing heavy physical stuff & it is nothing for him to consume large amounts of food. He burns through it fairly quickly. As a rule I make him a meat & salad sandwich for lunch, throw in a muesli bar & a couple of pieces of fruit & we're done. On the Daniel Diet Dino gets no meat. [Star has been snickering no end about this one!] I have found myself making quantities of pasta or rice or potato salad, salsa~y things with our abundance of tomatoes & cucumbers straight out of the garden, tabouli ~ all just for the lad to take to work. I make a large container. It comes home empty every night & he is always hungry! Always. Dino is having trouble, particularly with his energy levels but on the weekends he joins me on a liquids only regime. I suspect that is most of his problem right there but I don't want to discourage him. He wants to make some effort, however small & incomplete.

When I planned this January stretched ahead as a long empty expanse with very little happening. Expecting the massive headaches & a variety of lesser evils as my body detoxed I very deliberately left January as that vast & empty landscape. That all changed with one e~mail. Yesterday, as Star drove into town, Brizzie's temperature was skyrocketing past 38 degrees C & my water bottle was emptying fast! I was not looking forward to the drive home.

So here I am juggling a variety of eating habits, trying to time it so that Dearest's meat is ready just before I pour sauce into vegetables so that I can put Dearest's on his plate unadorned, & watching Star's supply of lentil patties deplete rather fast. And please, don't bother pointing out this isn't strictly a Daniel Fast. I know it's not ~ not exactly. Dino didn't do his reading & I got bored before I was half done so we are doing what we can. All this fuss about food! *sigh*

Meanwhile Star is having a massive meltdown because her voice, while improving, has not improved either enough or fast enough for her liking & finding a song that she isn't going to completely maul for her audition is proving difficult & angst~making. I have been roped in for personal performances late at night while Star runs through her repertoire & I make judiciously encouraging comments ~ & try not to giggle when her voice disappears completely! Oh. My.

And I have yet to get up to my mother's. Hopefully we will head to Star's audition on the 21st then just keep heading north. The cats will have a fit when we don't come home. Yes indeedy!

Back in the Green Room.

2012-01-05T13:20:00.000-08:00

I believe in professionalism, but playing is not like a job. You have to be grateful to have the opportunity to play ~Wynton Marsalis
January is usually pretty slow with us. Generally we are in recovery mode after too much December with Star involved in rehearsals & concerts up until Christmas Eve. January is usually hot. And muggy. Humid. Unbearable. We sprawl under the fans with cold drinks; ices; wet cloths, mopping our dripping faces. We watch too many movies & generally sloth about. The only excitement is our annual trip up to my mother's which we like to leave as late as possible hoping that by late January the crowds will have dispersed, the weather will have improved & the break will revive us enough to deal with the year ahead.

Which is why I chose January for my longer fast. Amongst other reasons but knowing I had nothing much on was a great motivator. That has all changed. Naturally.

It changed without warning. One moment I was happily clicking windows on my computer anticipating another slow day. The next I was reading an e~mail with growing alarm! So I am back in the Green Room. I am back with a vengeance. I think I was asleep in about 20 minutes. Gosh those couches are comfy! Everyone sleeps in the green room.

Mary Poppins is in full swing. The place was overflowing with children & chimney sweeps. Angelina Ballerina is showing. As is James & the Giant Peach. Star is in rehearsal. QPAC is providing the music for the "One Year On" First Anniversary Commemorative Service at Gatton to remember last year's devastating floods. This is by special invite & Star is incredibly lucky to be doing it. Four pieces to be learned in 4 days ~ one of which is our National Anthem. I know. Call me slack, but seriously when does anyone ever actually sing this thing ~ unless you are on a school parade ground for assembly [which Star obviously isn't] or accepting your gold medal at the Olympics? And hands up if you even knew there was another verse. I did but I don't know any of the words.

We were chatting on the way home, as one does on these occasions, because this event necessitates Star travel with the choir to Toowoomba & overnight there so they can run their sound & light checks & do a run through & stand around while the powers that be confer about whether everything is working as it should, & we realised that we could literally count the number of times Star has been away from home without me on the fingers of one hand. No school camps for the Star & even something like Guides Star hasn't done because music has eaten up her life. Oh. My. It's not that Star needs me; she doesn't. She just likes to have her *Mummy Admiration Society* out in full force when she's performing. What I am not doing is travelling out to Gatton! The crowds. The parking. Not this little black bunny. Nope. I shall stay home & enjoy it from the comfort of my lounge chair in front of the tellie!

So yeah. Star is required to be absolutely professional. The PM will be there. The GG will be there. The Premier will be there. The television cameras will be there. So if you happen to be watching the news Tuesday night scan the alto section for our Star. She'll be there somewhere.

Last Bird Standing.

2012-01-03T20:29:00.000-08:00

I realised that if I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes ~ Charles Lindbergh.

*Quiet time* was something of a misnomer this morning.

I have a cane chair upstairs in our overlarge bedroom where I can prop my feet on the low windowsill & look out through the canopy to the slow swirl of water that is our bay. There are usually lots of the little birds:finches, honeyeaters, silvereyes, flycatchers & fantails flitting through the leaves & warbling away. It creates a happy background noise for prayer. That all changed this morning.

It wasn't that the sound was unhappy ~ just, well, noisy. Lots of squawks & squeaks & arks punctuated by a shrill trill. I just had to open my eyes & peek. There, perched along my verandah rail, was a whole family of butcher birds & despite their extremely grotty feeding habits I am very fond of butcher birds because they have the loveliest song of all the bush birds. And they were all very intently watching the very fat grand~daddy of a butcher bird try to fit himself flat in my bird bath & roll around making sure every last feather got a good drenching. The peanut gallery had plenty of advice to offer about the process to boot!

As I watched more & more birds arrived until there were over half a dozen in various stages of either attempting to get into the bath, drink from the rim or dry off after their ablutions.

Half an hour later all that remained was one lone half~grown chick perched forlornly on the rail & a seriously depleted bird bath!

Not really me?

2012-01-02T00:46:00.000-08:00

I would appreciate the irony more if I was feeling better. Yep, I'm as crook as a chook & have spent the best part of 2 days in bed nursing a massive & debilitating headache along with various other aches & pains. Actually I'm heading back there very soon. Such a waste. Down south has a heat wave. We just have blue skies & lovely sun.

So I thought I would show you what Star gave me. It is very pretty ~ though not really my colours, well I like the cream but red, not really me. The material is beautifully soft so it's nice & comfortable to wear & wear it I do, to church. Star, however, was not satisfied with just buying me a pretty shirt for special. Nope, not the Star. She had to accessorise. The ear~rings are fine. The bangles are pretty but I can't think the last time I was so accessorised. Well before my first child was born!

The child does not have a Quakerish bone in her body. Obviously. So what did she buy for herself? Glow~in the~dark nail polish! Yep, she's wearing it. It works. She's absolutely delighted. I wonder about that child. I really do.

Part of the Whole Cloth for your consideration.

2011-12-30T13:31:00.000-08:00

And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.
And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.
And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God.

I can't explain the math so I am linking to a short article that does a much better job than I ever could of explaining mathamatically how we actually have really good indicators of when Jesus was actually concieved & born & having those indicators how much more amazing & wonderful & holy & all of a piece with Scripture Jesus birth actually is & why Christmas has so diminished the wonder & the glory that it actually is.

Symbolically this makes much better sense to me than anything the church has come up with. I can hear the Spirit of God in this thinking because this is how I experience God also: symbolically consistent from beginning to end. If you study Passover you see exactly the same symbolic consistency. I can't think of a festival where this is not so.

It is beautiful in deeply meaningful ways & it is like a many faceted diamond. No matter which way you look at it the light magnifies & glories God. And that, my friends, is the Spirit's job; to turn us & keep turning us towards Christ!

2011-12-30T01:30:00.000-08:00

Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls: but they said, We will not walk therein. ~ Jeremiah 6:16

It began a long time ago, so long ago I was not much more than a child, & it began because my innermost spirit rejects compartmentalisation. Life is a whole cloth or it is a tattered rag & it will never make sense. If I think that about life how much more do I believe it about God's word & how I have struggled with all the various theories & doctrines that want to shred it & divide it up as the soldiers did with Christ's belongings under the cross. It is not possible without irreparable damage & it creates falsity.

The problem with thinking things through for yourself is that you may very possibly end up at the point at which you began but you will not be the same person. The problem with thinking things through for yourself is that most people don't like it because we all have our own little pet theories or a doctrine we cling too that prevents light from shinning into our dark corners. The hardest thing is to remain balanced, poised in such away that one is open to the new without falling headlong into heresy.

The problem with thinking things though for yourself, especially if you think out loud in a public domain like a blog, is that you are open to misunderstanding. How do you account for the leading of the Holy Spirit to someone who's starting point is that all the charismatic gifts ended at Pentecost? That is not my personal experience. Nor do I believe that is what scripture teaches. How do you convey the inaudible voice of God to someone who has not heard it & doubts your testimony. This was my starting point. If you are real, God, prove it to me. It sounds rude, even blasphemeous, but I'm hardly the first to demand proof. The thing with asking proof from the Living God is that having made me He knows exactly where my weak points are, just where to point the finger, exactly how I think & He deals with that. There is nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. I am an open book before God.

And what God has been at great pains to impress upon me is that scripture is indeed a whole cloth, absolutely consistent from beginning to end. That I understand this better symbolically than logically is simply a quirk of my nature. There is no division between Old Testament & New. There is fulfilment ~ but it is not what the church seems to have been teaching.

I think in pictures. When Paul speaks of the root supporting the gentiles [Romans11] I absolutely have that picture. I garden. I know about grafting. You can graft anything you like onto your rootstock but the root remains the same & if you lose your grafts the plant reverts to it's original nature. If you allow it to shoot from below the graft you have an original shoot. Where the plant draws its nourishment is from the root, from the original plant.

Now this is an important picture for several reasons. Much of what God wishes to convey to His people He conveys symbolically & if we don't understand we miss the point He wishes to make. The New Testament does not, cannot, replace what was revealed in the Old Testament "for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable". God does not change. The God of Abraham, Jacob & Isaac is Jesus' God & our God.

This has important implications for our understanding of scripture because one way or another it has been westernized until it bears little resemblence to the original. I have reached no definite conclusions but here are some things I am thinking on.

The Law is important. The Hebraic "Torah" means teaching ~ which carries completly different connotations. The teaching is about how to live in accordance with God's will. I can hear people screaming Grace already. Two passages ~ for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure. [Philippians 2:13]

And

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the LORD; I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people: [Jeremiah31:33]

What is it that is God's good pleasure? That we obey Him ~ & where we find the teaching on how to please & obey Him is in scripture ~ all of it! Grace, through the power of the Holy Spirit, enables us to obey it because the Holy Spirit resides within us & works in us to do that which is not naturally in us to do. And as grafted roots these scriptures are applicable to us also. There is no division in the grafted plant once the graft has taken.

Now I am very clear: there is no salvation through works alone. None at all. The Old alone cannot save. But my desire is to be pleasing to God & my example is Christ. Pause for thought. I've said it before, I'll say it again: Christ was an orthodox, practising Jew. If Christ, God's only begotten son, God on earth, a prophet & the saviour of the world considered it important enough to obey the Torah, surely I should give it pause for thought. At the very least.

It is Christ who said:
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. [Matthew5:17~20]

The problem is not God's Law; it is what man has added to it creating an impossible burden. God never gives us more than we can bear ~ & He always gives us a way to deal with things.

It is fascinating to observe that all down the ages the call has gone out: Stand in the paths, seek the good way & you shall find rest...but they would not. What a shattering observation.

The more I walk in the *Old Paths* the more of Scripture makes sense to me. I have a greater sense of the flow & continuity of God's purposes from beginning to end. I can see the whole picture ~ & I'm a whole picture thinker. And absolutely everything slots into its alloted place, seamlessly, without crease or crinkle. And what it creates in me is a great sense of awe & amazement. God had all this in mind, all symbolically unified, a single woven cloth at the very moment He created the heavens & the Earth & declared it, Very Good. Pretty much a wow moment, don't you think?

Walking into the New Year.

2011-12-29T16:54:00.000-08:00

And when you fast, don’t make it obvious, as the hypocrites do, for they try to look miserable and disheveled so people will admire them for their fasting. I tell you the truth, that is the only reward they will ever get ~ Matthew 6:16

Since September Dino & I have been discussing doing a longer fast together. Together because we can strengthen & support each other. Dino will be working so wants to do a partial fast. Not sure how this will work as I know virtually nothing about the Daniel Fast though I have found a really good blog on the subject ~ only because it's about food I got bored really fast.

I want to do a water & juice fast. Well, actually, I don't want to do it. Not really but the Holy Spirit is being pretty insistent. I want the blessing; I don't want to have to work for it. *sigh*

Anyway, I've been going round & round in my head coming up with all the reasons a longer fast is so not a good idea ~ & all the reasons why it is a really, really good idea because I know the first 24 hours are going to be horrible as the caffeine in my system dwindles to nothing but there are things in my life I want to break & there are promises I want to claim.

We've never done New Year resolutions. Superstitious nonsence & I know perfectly well every single resolution will get broken sooner rather than later, so why bother beginning? But this year I want something different. This year I want to position myself so I can accept the fulness of what God has for me. I want to begin my year by dedicating myself more fully to the one who died to claim me. I can sense a growing movement of the Spirit & the massing of oppossing armies in the spiritual realms & I want to be ready.

Very reluctantly I have been trying to psyche myself up for this. Just thinking about it makes me feel tired. I haven't even begun & I want to quit.

So there I was, the days dwindling away, the hours counting down & yummy food still in my cupboards. Somebody should hurry up & eat it! Anyway, I have had an epiphany: The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. It is the flesh that has to die. Not such a great epiphany. No except for one thing; I have been made very aware that my flesh is one thing; my spirit is something else entirely.

I have been dreaming ~ not unusual for me. I dream vividly in technicolour big screen splendour. Always have. Dearest has always complained because of the intensity & realism of my dream life. He's got the blame for a lot of stuff that he knows nothing about while I reel in the aftershock of my dreams. However this time the dreaming is different. It does not have that dream~like quality & what I am dreaming about is the proposed fasting. And here is where it gets interesting because fleshly little me is still squirming looking for the loop~hole that will get me out of this but my spirit is rejoicing. Exaulting. Thrilled to bits. Anticipitatory. Excited. Dancing a little spiritual jig inside me. *sigh*

I didn't have to say anything & no~one would ever know whether I did it or not but if I keep quiet I don't have to be accountable. This way I am accountable. Water. Juice. Broth. I have no idea how I will go because I've never gone quite so long before & I know my weak points will be as I have to get dinner for the rest of my household & I'm tired, grumpy & low on energy. If you can spare them I covet your prayers. Yes indeedy.

Oh, & in case you're wondering, this after months of virtual silence from the Lord so I'm listening up as hard as I can. The best way I know to sharpen my spiritual hearing is to discipline myself through fasting. I am such a sloth. I can really enjoy puddling in the murky spiritual backwaters rather than working out my salvation with fear & trembling. So donning the armour, girding the loins. I think I need to mention to the Lord I'm a pacifist ~ only I guess He knows that & has other plans! Oh well.

Direct Hit.

2011-12-27T03:23:00.000-08:00

It was the noise Of ancient trees falling while all was still Before the storm, in the long interval Between the gathering clouds and that light breeze Which Germans call the Wind's bride. ~ Charles Godfrey Leland

Our weather has been odd: cold, cold, cold broken by spells of hot mugginess. Today was hot & muggy. By lunch time I'd had enough & went to bed. All the hot Mediterranean countries have it right: the only thing to do on a hot afternoon is go to bed & sleep. Which I did.

I woke to the pricking storm. My feet hit the floor in alarm because if there is one thing that freaks Kirby out more than anything else it is a Queensland storm. I was too late. As I shot down the stairs slamming windows on my way the wind bent the trees over & the rain scythed horizontally across the bare paddocks in a screaming rage. Once the storm is under way no amount of calling will bring that terrified cat so I made a coffee & resigned myself to waiting.

Twenty minutes later an inch of rain had fallen & my yard was a mess. We kept as many of the big trees as we could but after years of drought the trees are shedding their sails in any sort of a breeze ~ & shed they did. One took out the minature rose bush that has sheltered the bathroom door for 20 odd years. Flat as a pancake. No idea if it can be resurrected.

Most of a tree landed on the moriah under the kitchen window.

Another branch tried to flatten the Peach tree. Half of it is still tangled in there. No idea how I am going to get it out.

Gran lost her big grevillia. The temperature plummeted from 31C to 19C in a matter of minutes ~ & we were the lucky ones. Further down the road the branches down are bigger & better ~ whole trees even. A good part of the island lost its eletricity & several now have flat cars under rather large trees.

For a while there I was worried about Dino but he just beat the storm in & Kirby came slinking home just before the next front came through bringing thunder & lightening & more rain.

Guess what I'm doing tomorrow?

Checking the Pots: a pictorial review for Liddy.

2011-12-25T20:29:00.000-08:00

Huge tides just now. Still flooding so it probably came up over the lip of the pool.

Though the regulars still prefer jumping off the jetty roof. Shark bait.

Star looking cool & professional ~ until she actually has to do something. lol Her mother's daughter!

Absolutely beautiful. A bit rough in the open water. All my pics from there blurred but warm enough I didn't need a jacket even though I got pretty wet.

Mending the pots. Between the sharks & our usual friend there were quite a few holes.

Baiting up. Been a few days since some of these were done so pretty stinky.

Star in her usual perch. She rides like Jacky up there. Dino was complaing about the amount of weight in the boat. Silly him for inviting us all!

In & out of the mangroves. Spotted the wake & splash of a small shark. Had a Sea Eagle riding the thermals overhead.

Put the pots in close along the passage. Pretty choppy.

Recognize this?

Exciting times trying to untangle this chappie.

Plenty of boaties around. Can't think they had a comfortable berth at all but at least the sun is now out. He didn't get a lot. Lots of small ones but he'll go out again later.

Enjoy your trip up north. Have a nice break & get plenty of rest before you're back into everything.

The Good, the Bad & the Ugly.

2011-12-25T19:43:00.000-08:00

Only in grammar can you be more than perfect. ~ William Safire

We are not, as some suppose, celebrating the O.T festivals as such. Rather we are using them as the springboard for the N.T revelations that they are in fact are. So no, not accurate if you know about Hannukah. Not a lot of things. However I had always planned to wind up on Christmas Evening as it is Dearest's birthday Boxing Day & in my mind the last 2 covenants belong together because when Christ returns we see all fulfillment!

And now I can look back at what we did & evaluate it in the light of experience. Did it work? Was it what we wanted? Was it worth it? Will we do it again? And here is where it gets interesting because I was just following what I felt was a nudge from the Holy Spirit & as we discussed, I am so not the doing sort. The spirit is willing but the flesh is very weak & by yesterday I'd had enough. We were all pretty tired because we were on the first boat off the island to get to church at all & as is always the way, if you know about these things, we have been under spiritual attack all week. The cats were psychotic over having being deserted for the morning & it blew 30~35 knots here yesterday so the water was as rough as.

By now my big thick candles were starting to look more than a little strange & we have wax everywhere because the yellow candle never did want to stay alight & I had decided not to bother but, undiscussed, Dino went hunting a lighter. And he did the most amazing thing. He lit the servant candle first ~ as I have done each evening & began to light the candles from right to left ~ as you are suppossed to. And as he lit each candle he put them in order & named the covenant they represented. I was so blown away. And I am so pleased he lit the candles because it created the most amazing sacred space. Everyone calmed. Yep, even the cats.

The candle light created the quiet, meditative space I so love & for the fist time all the candles were shining in the dark, their rainbow colours glowing with the reminder of God's promises. It was so lovely. And as we talked of the things of God & how there was so much more that we hadn't covered because a vessel can only hold so much at a time & we had already covered so much Dino pointed out that this was something that would translate well to church ~ as it does because I've done it for home church. Something else I love about God's festivals because they start with the family & transmute easily & naturally into church & community.

What I now know is I need to be far, far better organised ~ & well in advance so that each day flows smoothly. This can be as big & over the top or as quiet & laid back as you like. Star would like more hoop~la & pizzaz. She's like that. I need to think far more carefully & prayerfully about ways to give other than material gifts. Dino has given me several ideas here. Fried foods [because of the oil symbolism] are traditional & though we did pretty well at having something fried most nights, again I need to plan ahead better. I think I need some clear plastic folders so I can pull my book apart, put each festival with the relevant games, food, ideas & menus into it & work from there. This could be a life's work!

We also found certain difficulties arose from being out of step with the surrounding culture. Dino, of course, was still working & we had to accomodate his schedule. We still had to battle the shops just for our regular food supplies. We had to hold our tongues a lot as we got plenty of raised eyebrows when we got caught having to explain we'd already done our presents ~ & I was so trying not to have to explain to outsiders what we were doing. It can so quickly & easily be miunderstood.

What has happened however, is that while it wasn't perfect & while it felt a little strange at times, as Dino ponted out there was so much more meaning to everything! Dearest was delighted in the end. He definitely wants to do it this way again ~ as does Dino. A little more pizzaz & I think even Star will be happy. She does so love a good fuss!

What is most important to me though is how the Holy Spirit took even such a poor offering & worked with what we could do, anointing & blessing it with the unction of His spirit. I might have missed it except for a niece of mine who promptly posted what Santa had left for her under the tree Christmas morning. We were so not there & I am so grateful to be able to help my children celebrate in a way that will bless them in unknown ways for years to come. It is the sort of legacy that no amount of money can buy, the pearl of great price for which a man sells everything he has. So, yes, worth every moment.

Days 7 & 8

2011-12-25T14:47:00.000-08:00

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no one cometh unto the Father, but by me. John 14:6

Colour: violet

Considering: The first of the promises yet to be fulfilled

                      : The covenant of Peace; the New Jerusalem

                     : The Kingdom of Light

Colour: White

Considering: the marriage covenant of the lamb.

                     : God, the light of heaven.

                     : The fulfillment of all things.

Dreamer of Dreams.

2011-12-23T14:40:00.000-08:00

"But within me the unicorn still remains, a formless shadow in the spaces of my mind." ~ Josephine Bradley

The visionaries in my family marry practical sorts. The practical sorts confuddle me but they have a knack of making dreams a reality.

In my family I am the dreamer. I am not much interested in reality ~ which is messy & not nearly so pliable as a good imagination. Which is why I sometimes wonder just what I'm doing in this particular family.

I said to Dearest [to Dearest said I], "I am thinking of doing things a little differently this year & not having Christmas as such..." because Dearest has never liked Christmas, as you tend not to when your birthday falls on Boxing Day & the world is so over the whole shennanigans nobody is interested in your own particular special day.

And Dearest said, or words to this effect, "Whatever rocks your boat, m'dear."

I ran it past Dino & got a similar unhelpful response. What do you do with, "Whatever."? Star at least had decided opinions but got outvoted.

By inclination & training I am a teacher. I'm a writer. I'm a Dreamer. I am so not detail oriented I can forget important details as irrelevant. Making something actually happen is not my forte. I will talk about it till the cows come home. I will dream about it ad infinitum. I can speculate with the best of them but ask me to actually do something & I get all...well, confuddled. How does one actually make something happen?

Makes you wonder how I got this far through life, doesn't it.

So changing anything round here entails angst. Lots & lots of angst. So it has been with our celebrations this year. My inclination is to teach about~ rather than to do. The doing comes hard. Getting my act together to prepare things night after night is almost more than I can manage, not because it is difficult or stressful; it is not, but simply because I have to, well, do something! Honestly, what a circus.

I seriously wish the practical sorts would run with my dreams & make it all happen ~ but, No. Even me putting things together so it looks like the men are leading some of the time does not get the men in my life up & moving because in this house I am known as the *Walking Encyclopedia.* Want to know something no~one ever looks it up. They ask me first. And night after night my family has sat round like stuffed fish while we run through the shorter than short program until I thankfully let the conversation roam where it will & I have been thinking what an enormous flop the whole thing has been & wish that I could crawl into my imaginary world & reinvent myself yet again.

One never knows what goes on in another's mind. Having screwed day 4 right royally I was about ready to pack the whole thing in when Dino turned to me & said, "Well, it will be better next year, now we know what we're doing & we have a whole year to think about it. It will just continue to grow." He wants to do this again!

And Dino, my Dino, has had the best insight yet because Day 4, he thought blessing someone else meant the prayer you would pray for them for the following year & he had lovely blessings! Such a good idea. I wish I'd thought of it first. See what I mean? *sigh*

Then last night, we had a break because Star & I had to spend the day on the mainland to do our regular fruit & veg shop with the milling hordes of Christmas shoppers & I let Star drive....& Dino couldn't be home last night because of work commitments so we will do 2 tonight because he didn't want to be left out....So Dearest turns to me & says how lovely it's been this year & he likes how our special times have been spread out over the week. He likes how we have had scripture every evening & a time to chat together ~ not that talking is unusual in this house but getting us all together is not always easy. He likes the way the emphasis has shifted to focus so much more on Christ. Well. I guess I'm gob~smacked.

The jury is still out so far as Star is concerned but being Star she won't say & so long as she gets her Christmas pancakes Christmas Day morning she won't care too much.

Me, I have so much in my head I can't hold it all. Starting with the fact that when God teaches us He feeds us with something to look at [candles ~ Christ the light of the World], something to eat [fried foods are traditional; oil reminds us of the mirical in the temple, the oil of the Spirit, Christ with us]; something to hear [Scripture ~ & I guess we could do music if I'm better organised next year.] & something to do!

And I am blessed by my family who are always willing to travel my dreams with me.

Day 6

2011-12-23T13:00:00.000-08:00

Still ours the dance, the feast, the glorious Psalm, The mystic lights of emblem, and the Word. ~ Emma Lazarus

Colour: Indigo

Considering: the covenant of redemption

:the meaning of the passover cup & bread

: Jesus, the light of the world, to whom all scriptures point & for whom & by whom the Holy Spirit is given that we might be led into all truth.

Day 5

2011-12-23T12:53:00.000-08:00

A candle is a small thing.

But one candle can light another.

And see how its own light increases,

as a candle gives its flame to the other.

You are such a light. ~

Moshe Davis and Victor Ratner

Colour: Blue

Considering: The covenant with David

                  : the Star of David

                  : A man after God's own heart & the perfect man.

                  :God's word as a lamp for my feet & a light to my path

Day 4.

2011-12-21T22:39:00.000-08:00

Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, ⁴⁴ and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. ⁴⁵ For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Mark 10:43~45

Colour: Green

Considering: the 4th covenant, the covenant with Moses

                     :The *Servant Candle*

                      : Temple symbolism; God with us; We, the temple for the Holy Spirit; dedicating the temple for the purposes of God.

This is about our half~way point so this is the night our focus shifts again from recieving gifts to thinking of different ways in which we can bless the others in our lives. Always a good thing to remember to bless those who so bless us each day.   And the symbolism is already in place! The servant candle lights all the others, as Christ lights His Own. As we recieve, so we are to give.

Day 3.

2011-12-21T02:59:00.000-08:00

Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the universe, who wrought miracles for our fathers in days of old, at this season. 2nd Blessing of the candles

Colour: yellow

Considering: The 3rd Covenant ~ Abram's covenant.

: The Light of the Torah.

: Christ, the fulfillment of the law.

Dino shared that he was wondering all day what the 3rd covenant would be. Now he knows! ☺

In other news...

2011-12-20T13:15:00.000-08:00

The proper response, as Hanukkah teaches, is not to curse the darkness but to light a candle. ~ Irving GreenbergWhile those of you who celebrate Christmas are still busily preparing we are already part way through our celebrations.

Does it feel weird?

Sort of ~ but not as much as you might expect. What I have noticed is how much even such a small shift has made a big shift in our focus. It is far less fraught making because our emphasis is on the right things. Mostly. I think. Sort of.

Let me explain. Yesterday Dearest had a late dental appointment. Knowing I was the driver I had planned a simple meal of soup & toasted sandwiches & Star made chocolate pudding for desert. There were orange sweets set out in a bowl. The gifts were pre~wrapped. The candles are staying out. I marked our bible passages for the men to read & we were done. I have multiple nights for doing a variety of different things so one quieter night does not affect the overall whole badly.

What have I noticed? My kids are really engaging. Dino is older of course but even Star, who is at that reluctant stage, is joinging in & enjoying it ~ & she has been most adamant that we not ditch Christmas. The cats have joined in. Julie has Hallelujah Hounds ~ we have Christian Cats. Seriously. Both cats park themselves in the midst of the doings, ears pricked, all attentive cattiness until we are done. Then they suddenly disappear.

What are we learning? What a question! I forget, often, what a lot of strangeness I hold in my head & can take it for granted that my children also know all about these things. They do not. Not even close. I think this is the first time we have systamatically gone through the biblical covenants. What an eye~opener for the kids as they follow God's promises through from beginning to end! Personally I have a sense of expectation building because I know what is to come & by the 6th covenant you are at that point where you know 6 promises have been fulfilled, 2 are yet to come ~ & that is seriously exciting, folks!

Why? So many reasons. Partly our family is dispersed all over the world: Liddy is in Chile; Theo is up North; Jossie is in Europe. Partly the Lord & I had a discussion about some of this several years ago because what is there to say about Christmas that hasn't been said ad nausaeum? And the Lord showed me something I have never forgotten ~ as you don't when it is the Lord doing the telling. Christmas is not about babies, angels, shephards, wise men. It is about the cross. The sole reason & purpose for Christ coming into the world was that He might journey towards the cross. And ever since I have found the trivialisation of Christmas difficult to bear. Do you know, have you studied, what it was like to be crucified? Read a medical diagnosis sometime. It is horrifying. Completely & utterly apalling.

Is it right? For us, yes. Each day we have come under spiritual attack ~ & each day God's grace has been extended because there is a blessing attached to walking in the old paths. There is a fulfillment of the promise Christ brings as the New Coventant merges with the Old & with it the peace that passeth understanding.

Day 2.

2011-12-20T12:03:00.000-08:00

When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;

What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. ~Psalm 8

Colour: Orange

Considering: "Let there be light."

: the 2nd Covenant [Genesis 9:9~16] BTW I have always found this an intriguing passage because it implies there is a judgement of the animals. Go on! Read it & see!

:The rainbow menorah candles.

Day One...

2011-12-19T00:32:00.000-08:00

Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. John8:12

Colour: Red

Considering: The miracle of the temple oil, a story Jesus would have known

: The 1st covenant

: Christ, the light of the world.

The Ghost of Christmas Past.

2011-12-18T15:13:00.000-08:00

"Lead on!" said Scrooge. "Lead on! The night is waning fast, and it is precious time to me, I know. Lead on, Spirit!" ~ A Christms Carol.

I was a gullible child. I believed it all: tooth fairies; fairies of all types & sizes; Santa Claus; Rudolph's nose; flying reindeer; other, parallel worlds. Nothing was too strange or far~fetched for my belief.

My mother has a knack for truly making things around her beautiful & so our house was always decorated for the season. She spent hours handcrafting decorations, creating nibbles & making the pudding ~ which though I never ate it I always stirred for luck while holding my nose against its fruity richness.

My family are Queenslanders through & through. We lived in Sydney, on the wrong side of the border. There was no extended family for Christmas ~ ever. My father, a pilot, was invariably working Christmas Day & my mother refused to let us so much as peek at anything until he arrived home. Christmas Day was often very delayed in our house.

My mother is a list maker, a woman of routine & predictability. No matter the levels of excitment there was order & things were done in a calm & seemly manner ~ starting with breakfast. Then we almost invariably headed off to early church. Everyone else always seemed to have been up for hours & opened all their presents already. We were still in a pother of anticipation, the stockings stuffed & sitting under the tree, wonderful & tantilizing boxes scatterd unopened. Delayed gratification. It is an important lesson to learn.

Even when my father arrived home we had to wait while he changed out of his uniform, poured himself a glass of Christmas Cheer & prepared to play Santa Claus because we were never ever allowed to dive at the pile of presents searching for our things & rip, tear, bust through everything. Things were handed out one at a time. We each got to see & admire each others gifts & share in their excitment. It was prolonged & orderly. A good thing because we were not a particularly well off family when I was little. Comfortable, but not rolling.

Our Christmas tree was a live minature pine. For 11 months of the year it grew in a pot beside the front door. The week before Christmas it was dragged indoors & strewn with lights & baubles & tinsle streamers. Stockings were pegged to the pot's rim. The Nativity scene came out. The days grew hot & languid. School let out. The anticipation mounted. I remember.

I am not my mother. Organisation is not my forte. I do not cope well with hordes of demented children screaming through my house. We always, always, kept Christmas low key. Ours have never been allowed to just get up & rip into things. They have been made to wait until everyone is up. Star has had it worst. By the time she came along the rest were of an age to appreciate sleep more than presents! We have gone to church, read scriptures, eaten a nice meal, shared some treats, remembered the whole reason for Christmas was the Cross.

I no longer believe in flying reindeer. Rudolph's nose does not glow *like a lightbulb*. Male reindeer lose their antlers in autumn so all Santa's reindeer must have been female ~ & though some wit has remarked we should have known that 'cause only women could manage an around the world trip delivering presents in one night! The logistics, the logistics...., female reindeer aren't designed for pulling sleighs. Christ was not born on December 25th.

The world has turned. Christmas has become so commercialised it is almost unrecognizable as the celebration of my childhood. I hear far more about how much the big shops have made in profit than I do about the King of Kings & Lord of Lords. Christianity has lost followers at an alarming rate. Disbelief & scepticism rule the day. The grog is coming over by the truckload. So very quietly, one step at a time, we are retreating from the worldly rush & babble, from the desperate consummerism, & recentering ourselves.

There are things that are important to us as a family that we wish to address more deeply. So while I know Hannukah has been & gone this year I have taken some Jewish wisdom. There is nothing wrong with celebrating per se. I do have issues with all the pagan elements but that's me. We are not calling it Chritmas ~ where is the mass in Christmas? I am not putting up a tree or doing cards. We are not doing anything except attend church & have a nice meal on the day itself but all this week we are focusing on the Light coming into the world. We are giving gifts, small necessary things ~ one for each person each night. We are doing the coloured candles & the coloured candy. We are preparing because Dino & I want to start the new year with a 21 day fast & there is no way that will happen easily if we have been absolute gluttons over Christmas. So...

I am being intentional in my celebrations this year. It is hard. I am not an intentional person. I tend to wing it. With the rest of the world going crazy we are trying to remain sober & restrained. And we plan on having a jolly good time while we do it!

Catty Tales.

2011-12-17T14:37:00.000-08:00

Never play cat & mouse games if you're a mouse. ~ Don Addis

They're worse than children! Seriously. I think I own the most demented cats around ~ which is saying something because cats, on the whole, display a wide range of completely neurotic behaviours in their efforts to manipulate the world around them.

Marlow & Kirby, like the other set of twins I own, are either in a love or hate relationship with each other. There is no middle ground. Most nights they will happily sleep tail to tail. Dearest, who often sleeps badly, informs me they stand guard over me all night long & visit me to reassure themselves I am sleeping well. As they don't disturb me I cannot verify this rather strange tale. What I do know is I woke the other night to find Kirby dying by degrees because Marlow was in a bait & had his jaws firmly clamped round his brother's jugular! I gave him a mighty swat whereupon I got the highly injured look that plainly asks: What have I done?

Each night I clamber awkwardly up our stairs grasping my large armful of cat because if I do the sensible thing & carry them up separately there is an all out war over the favouritism of who got in first. Meanwhile, as bedtime approaches, both cats start circling my computer chair waiting for the first indications that there is movement bedroomwise. And no, they will not walk upstairs on their own at bedtime. They expect to be petted, coddled & carried & if I don't a great wailing ensures that is guarrenteed to wake the sleepers & have the workers roaring to shut those animals up! So yes, they are very indulged.

Kirby, however, decided to go one better. Instead of bringing himself downstairs in the mornings he perched on the drawers & cried until I came & got him. Of course he made this a perfectly acceptable behaviour by greeting my arrival with lavish delight, stretching himself up along my chest, wrapping his forepaws around my neck, & burrowing in with huge rumbling purrs. Who could resist?

Marlow one~upped him by refusing to get out of bed at all, ensuring a steady stream of visitors anxious about his well~being & prepared to chuck him under the chin. Both cats are very high strung & though they are pretty relaxed it doesn't take much to spook them so alerted by Marlow's pricked ears & alert attentiveness I investigated.

I swear, it's not just the cats. Everything that lives round here is looney~tunes! This was playing with Kirby. Yes, I said playing. He wasn't in the least afraid of Kirby, as he most certainly should have been, & when I arrived on the scene to remove my cat he came out to investigate me, nose twitching curiously, bright eyes regarding me with decided interest ~ & he hung around while I got the camera & took pictures.

An Episode of Mishaps.

2011-12-16T14:09:00.000-08:00

Standing there, staring at the long shelves crammed with books, I felt myself relax and was suddenly at peace ~ Helene Hanff.

Twice a year, or thereabouts, we go into the big Christian bookstore, Koorong, & spend waaay too much money. To date, Liddy has been the driver. This is not good news for directionally dysfunctionals like Star & I because when we want to go by ourselves it is never straightforward. Having discussed the issue with my Star we decided the outer suburb one was a better option than the inner city one because there was less traffic, the parking was easier & Star could drive. Oh, & Star said she thought she knew where this one was!

There are no prizes for guessing she did not have a clue. We crossed the highway heading the wrong way in to town. We crossed the highway heading the wrong way down to the Gold Coast. We crossed the highway....all I can say is Star's driving hours increased dramatically!!!! We crossed the highway so many times we needed to find fuel.

Having discovered on the boat that thanks to Dearest distracting me at the critical moment I had left my card at home we were down to Star's & Star, naturally, had no idea if she could even remember her pin! While she went to find out I investigated the catalogue for an address & the refedex for directions. She'd actually been pretty close but having come through on a different road to the one she knew, had become disoriented.

Star being Star put fuel in the car [ a process which required me standing beside her for moral support because she'd never done this before! How hard can it be to put fuel in a car?] & chocolate in us. By then we needed it.

However we did eventually find Koorong, which is good for mainstream stuff ~ not so good if you want something even a little unusual. Just the same God is invariably very good to me. I had bookmarked something for Dino, who is even more computer illiterate than I am, & which he hadn't got round to watching ~ & there it was, in book form, for under $10~. Score! I wandered happily until Star made it really plain she was bored witless then gathered up our goodies to do battle with the checkout where we have a discount on at least one person's details but weren't sure if any of us had changed those to the new ones. No, we have never claimed to be the well organised sort.

We then headed back to our regular stomping grounds so Star could make her purchases ~ an exercise that always leaves me reeling & exhausted, especially when said purchases involve me. I adore my daughter but she has decided my rather unispired dressing style needs to change. Considering my figue in a full length mirror does nothing for my ego & is an exercise I usually manage to avoid by the simple process of sticking to Ts & trackies, 2 articles of clothing I know my size for & can buy off the rack in the plainest styles & colours. This does not suit my flibberty~gibbit daughter who promptly chose something long, flowing & flowery. Um, no. I have tactile issues about bits of me touching other bits of me. Eventually she chose a rather nice top ~ with accessories! OK, so I do do dangly ear~rings & a couple of plain rings but I rarely wear any other jewellery. Tactile issues again. I can get fraught very quickly by things touching my skin. *sigh* The things I do for love.

We got home only to immediately head out the door again for the island carol night. This is one activity Star absolutely adores & insists on attending no matter how difficult & fraught making it is to achieve. She says it is the only performance where she gets to be in the audience ~ which is sorta true. It is totally for fun & as we are invariably running late we invariably end up in front row seats where the Singers, who all know Star very well indeed, target her as their audience responder. Nothing loathe Star plays along!

We had a great crowd ~ the best in years. It wasn't too hot & Star & I always head towards the alto section where Star's cracking voice is not so noticable & I have some hope of hitting some of the notes some of the time! All the hours & hours of sitting in singing classes is paying off in the strangest ways. I've known most of these voices for years. Now I am hearing quite clearly strengths & faults & the ravages of age ~ & for a good part of the programme [& lets face it most carols are not musically difficult] was able to hold an alto part against the high soprano on my right! My friend, Sian, had a solo & whatever she has done this last year her voice has improved out of sight! The timbre, the richness, the control ~ just amazing! Lovely to listen to.

So just feeling my way throught this season because one of the things of course is that if we want everybody to be able to participate in something we have to take into account their schedule & everybody's schedule is geared around Christmas. Still, the Lord has given me one or two ideas & Christmas being on a Sunday this year makes things so much easier. To really plan out what I would like to do requires not running like a mad woman all through September. And October. And November. And all of December. Which is unlikely in the short term. But one day it will happen.

God is a Homeschooler.

2011-12-15T13:56:00.000-08:00

We remember 10% of what we read, 20% of what we hear, 30% of what we see, 50% of what we see & hear, 70% of what we discuss with others, 80% of what we personally experience & 95% of what we teach others.~ Edgar Dale.

As I read round about I keep returning to one thing ~ well, one thing for the present! Maybe it's because I'm a homeschooler. Maybe I'm just that way. Whatever.

If you've ever struggled to remove the blank stare from a child's eyes that tells you they just don't get it then you get that teaching is not always a joy~filled experience. On the other hand there is nothing quite like watching the light break & understanding flood a child's mind! The trick is to make it happen!

I mean, one of the biggest hurdles for us as homeschoolers as Star has got older is dealing with the department of education mentality that says everything needs to be written down. Why? Star is then working in her weakest learning style ~ & we know all about learning styles in this house because none of mine learn well in traditional ways! Being a visual myself I don't do so well with the kinesthetics & hands on learners ~ which is what most of mine are. They are exhausting.

And then I started researching about the Jewish festivals & you know what? God is a homeschooler! Seriously. We've all been here, right? Four kids, four different learning styles & we're struggling to pull a lesson plan together that isn't going to take more than it's alloted hour & which all four children will *get*. Near impossible even with hours upon hours of ground work. Someone is going to whinge about something the entire way through.

Every time I study the festivals I am struck anew by this. There is something for the eyes [visual learner], something for the ears [auditory learner], something to do [hands on learner] & enough movement to keep a kinesthetic engaged. What's more [despite the disputed reliability of Dale's figures] all the festivals encourage both discussion & teaching. Think how the very youngest at a Jewish Passover asks the important questions.

This struck me again as we struggle to move our family away from the traditional Christmas thing because I can hamstring myself all over the place. I want to keep it simple a la my Quakerish impulses. I want to move it to the left & closer to our shared Jewish roots. I understand God is for lavish celebrations ~ according to His guidelines. I want to ensure the focus our family maintains is Christ centred. Seem obvious? Amazing how unlikely this is even in Christian homes when there is all the excitement of a tree & presents.

I have used this book for purely practical purposes. It is full of wonderful food, games, bible readings, music etc for each of the feasts but I find it quite difficult to use. Nothing seems to be organised in the sort of way I organise things & all the various bits seem to be all over the place. It is a really large heavy book too. As mine are older now a lot of the consumables are not for us ~ though later perhaps for grandchildren? Also I find it incredibly verbose when there is no need to be & weighted with solemnity; I'm not a very solemn person so that tends to have me rolling my eyes rather like Star & stifling a yawn of boredom but at the time it was the best & most detailed information I could find & I still appreciate it for that.

This is the other book I have found really helpful. It is not about the festivals per se & I discussed the book here but I buy books that I can read multiple times on multiple levels & Perry is a man after my own hearrt. He goes beyond the surface. He digs deep. And he understands something that has come to mean a great deal to me: Jesus was an orthodox, practising Jew. As I seek to follow Him more closely I want to understand & appreciate what He understood & appreciated during His earthly walk & that includes the festivals; The Jewish festivals. Christ never celebrated Christmas. Or Easter. These are foreign concepts, man~made imports that have rather succesfully obscured our roots & the things God Himself implemented to teach us how to succesfully walk in His way.

I do get that very few seem to be getting called this way but if you refer to the quote above you will realise we retain 95% of what we teach others. So, um, yeah, you're just my way of ensuring I remember what I read! lol

2011-12-14T13:39:00.000-08:00

The idea of cultural relativism is nothing but an excuse to violate human rights. ~Shirin Ebadi

This is a household of strong opinions. Ever notice? Just the same this is the scariest thing I have read in a long time. We have so lost our way if our children can no longer distinguise right from wrong.

Tuesday's trivia.

2011-12-13T14:10:00.000-08:00

Hey diddle, diddle, right in the middle!

I like my history raunchy ~ & I do not like politics! History as she is all too often taught is the history of politics & events ~ & why should any of us care about any of it? BUT, when history is the history of people rather than things all that changes. Which is why I am enjoying Ranulph Fiennes Mad Dogs & Englishmen so very much.

It is, first & foremost, a family history but when you can number amongst your ancestors a murderer, a wife poisoner, a poacher, England's greatest female traveller of the 17th century, an extortionist Lord High Treasurer, teen cousins who eloped, a noble lord who was hanged for manslaughter,& another who was hanged for adultery with the King's wife, plus many who won famous battles as well as the women who spawned half the medieval Kings of England, well history is likely to mean something different than to the rest of us poor plebs. My lot tended to be the lot the English were stomping on.

So what have I learnt? Well, the politics of the times have fallen nicely into the realm of a major family squabble that got rather out of hand. The stakes rise when you can lose your head for being born in the wrong family at the wrong time! The Wars of the Roses finally makes sense. The whole caboodle is only what you could expect of a lot descended from William the Conqueror, who was quite the nastiest piece of work to ever sit on the English throne. Look up what happened at his burial some time. Way too gross to write here!

Anyway....Edward the 3rd. And we do remember from our history, don't we girls, that the longbow was attribued to England's military success during the medievial period? Star & I were doing archery for a bit. Those fancy leather bits on their forearems? They're there for a reason! A bowstring pinging you there leaves the most glorious bruise! Edward paid his archers 6pence a day. Remember when you could buy an icecream for sixpence? Most of his archers came from Wales. Or Cheshire. Or somewhere else where the inhabitants were considered expendable. And they practised from an early age. The government went so far as to pass laws expressly forebidding other sports such as cockfighting & football because it distracted people from archery practise. However all this practise resulted in deformed people who could fire as far as 400 yards fairly accurately at the rate of an arrow every 5 seconds. That's 6 times quicker than a crossbow. You were all just dying to know that, weren't you?!

Then there's Henry the V & VI with Fiennes not only dabbling in the real history but scampering through Shakespheare as well. And at this point, thanks to a succesion of kings who thought they should own France as well, & the internal politics of a nation that was never adverse to lopping of the heads of its kings, 5% of the King's army consisted of murderers & outlaws redeeming themselves through military service. Seems like a good idea to me. Three quarters of the army at this stage consisted of archers ~ who were mostly professionals. If you had to fight being an archer was the thing. The Irish were your cannon fodder regular foot~soldiers & fought barefoot with only a dagger while a knight, who mostly did not fight mounted, might be better protected by his armour but was disadvantaged by the simple fact that if he fell over it required 2 men to lift him up again & he was so incapable of movement once fully armed he was likely to drown in a puddle. Tales abound too of knights suffocating, unharmed in any other way, having been unlucky enough to land at the bottom of a pile of fallen comrades!

I'm still reading & giggling. All history should be taught like this. And yes, technically it is Wednesday in Australia but Blogger says otherwise & I was otherwise occupied yesterday!

2011-12-13T12:45:00.000-08:00

Nine out of 10 Quakers can still find consensus that there’s nothing better than a group of Friends gathered together and breaking spontaneously into silence. Just don’t try taking this door-to-door like caroling. ~ Rob Pierson

There is a tendencey amongst those of us who are conflicted about Christmas to take ourselves over seriously so I was delighted when Pen passed this one on via Facebook. Don't you just love the internet! The top 10 ways Quakers, who did not celebrate Christmas [or Easter, just as they don't do a lot of the things today's church still does], got to celebrate this particular day.

You can read the whole article here. It explains why the rest happened. So here goes!

1. Slaughter hogs. Yep. Dis~gusting!

2. Sell things.

3. Repair windows.

4. Accumulate debt.

5. Employ seasonal workers

6. Get arrested

7. Avoid frolic

8.Go Green.

9. Sit & Wait.

10. Celebrate Christ.

I particularly like 9 & 10. Rob Pierson is the author of this rather timely piece. It is still what happens when Christians, for whatever reasons, go against the flow. Plenty to think about. Why do we so persecute each other?

2011-12-12T02:41:00.000-08:00

Someone posted this on youtube. AVAE is down in the left hand corner. I think there were 5 of them this particular concert. Enjoy.

News from Chile.

2011-12-11T13:54:00.000-08:00

By now those of you who subscribe to Liddy's newsletter should have received the latest update. Due to the formatting the letter arrives in I have a lot of trouble downloading snippets onto the Chile page attached to this blog. This month's newsletter is longer than usual so I have ~~decided to forgo struggling with the formatting~~ had another go & I put up the pertinent praise & prayer points here & there. If you would like the newsletter for more in depth information please contact us on ganeidasknot@live.com.au ~ which is the e~mail attached to this blog~ & I will forward the newsletter on. Please indicate if you would like to continue recieving updates as I will add you to the mailing list.

There is much to be grateful for but as you can imagine this is a difficult time for a young & relatively inexperienced team. Skype is dodgey at best so we are immensly grateful that Liddy was able to catch up while her brother was home & we had a really good session.

Praise points.

• The books. They have been very revealing, challenging and helpful to my walk with God and what it means to bare fruit for his kingdom.

• The Spanish progress

• The relationships that are build ing outside of OM

• That I've found a church to attend and am very happy with it

• The calm inside the Intensive Training program at this time. We should be hitting a low, which hasn't happened... yet

• The continued financial support

PRAYER POINTS

• The children's ministry. I haven't been able to settle properly. Jona, the team leader, was away for some time and is now no longer a part of the ministry. Please pray for the children as they adjust but also the team for the boys of El Arca.

• The 3 month period. This is the time that we will all, supposedly, enter into the phase of culture shock.

• My relationship with Intensive Training Leaders, Tineke and Whitney but also Kellie, another I.T participant.

• Spiritual Warfare, the team is cur-rently experiencing many different things.

• For the arrival of a new team member, Bec. For her settle-ment but also for us as we adjust to another person being in the house, making it 9 in total.

Once again, a huge thank you to all those of you who support us one way or another. You may never know how much this means to us or what a difference it has made but we are eternally grateful! May God bless you & all those you dwell under your covering. *Ganeida*.

Suffering from Double Vision.

2011-12-10T16:13:00.000-08:00

The story is told of an atheist that was debating a Christian. The atheist said ‘I’ll prove to you that there is no God. God, if you are there, I dare you to strike me down and kill me right now!’ With the atheist still alive, the Christian turned and said ‘All that you have just proved is the love, grace, and patience that God has towards a wicked and proud humanity.’~ Unknown

I've noticed it for some time now ~ & it's not because I'm getting old. I swear it's a disease & I know of no cure for it: double vision.

Have you noticed? Do you suffer from it too? Some days it feels like I'm losing my mind.

Nope, not the sort of double vision that requires corrective glasses & multiple [& expensive!] trips to the optomitrist. I'm talking about the other sort. You know, where you're having a quite ordinary conversation with someone until they suddenly say something & you slam up against the fact the pair of you are not living in the same world at all!

Because I own a pair of spiritual glasses & though I think a good bit of this world is very lovely & I certainly get why God pronounced it Very Good after He made it, bits of it, quite a lot of bits are...not so good. It makes me sad. The sort of deep dark sadness that can't be allieviated because while you know the cure you also know most people don't want to know about it because it does not fit in nicely with their world view & it really requires some rather radical adjustments on their part.

Sometimes I wish I could take my glasses off. It's like being on board the Titanic. You know the iceberg's been hit. You know the ship's going down but the band plays on merrily. As in the days of Noah: "As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the Son of man, They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all (Luke 17:26-27)."

How close is close? Closer than you believe. Did you know, for example, that there is an Israeli sect [they have a web site too] dedicated to the third temple. They have all the priestly garments made. They have the musical instruments ready. They have carved the cornorstones. Seriously. Pics & everything if you are interested. They are ready to build. All that prevents them is the ongoing dispute over the Temple Mount but so long as that dispute continues the rest of us get to breath because once the temple sacrifices are once again halted we've got about 3 years before all hell breaks lose.

Christ warned us to read the signs of the times ~ not for scaremongering. Not for any other reason than that we should be prepared; that we should know what to expect; that we should arm ourselves in advance with the things of the Spirit. And that we should stand at the very gates of hell rescuing as many of those who are perishing as possible.

Today's absolute trivia: This is my 1oooth post & I haven't crashed my blog yet! ☺

2011-12-10T01:35:00.000-08:00

When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized that the Lord doesn't work that way so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me. ~ Emo Philips

We have run all term & now, suddenly, we have stopped. No singing. No dance. No concerts. Not even caroling this year. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Star is dying of boredom. Her time is usually so accounted for she treasures her free hours. Now she has more than she knows what to do with.

Naturally Queensland's weather has chosen the official start of the school holidays to drip miserably all over everything & pretend it is winter rather than the middle of December & only a fortnight from Christmas. It should be stinking hot. Humid. Muggy. We should be dripping with sweat & lying under the whirring fans dreaming of cool breezes while drinking long iced drinks & scoffing cold ices.

We rocked up to the pool once. The lady informed us the water was icy & she was closing in 15 minutes. Star chose not to spend her hard earned cash on 15 minutes of icy misery! I only like my water at bath temperature ~ which means I almost never swim.

And I don't like chlorine ~ particularly chlorine the kindergarteners have been learning to swim in! Nope.

We have done all the new DVDs. We have been to the library. We have dragged out the cards & jig~saws but sometimes you just need to get out of the house & look at something you aren't responsible for. So I took Star down to the island thrift store. If you're going to do thrift stores it really pays to do upmarket ones in the flash part of town ~ which, sadly, is not the island. More out of desperation than anticipation of finding anything we'd want I detoured to a garage sale & there, sitting on the lawn, was a brand new, unused ladies bike, almost, but not quite, exactly what Star has been wanting for some time.

I agreed to go halves. The crash helmet was thrown in for free.

Now Star is not the most physically dexterous of my children but as there was no way that bike was going to fit in my little red car the only way for Star to get it home was to ride it there! I watched her set off, rather wobbly & terribly self~conscious, then toddled off behind her. Waited by the P.O to make sure she made it up the hill ok ~ seriously necessary. She may be 16 but well~co~ordinated she is not! Once I was fairly certain she was going to make it home in one piece I headed off, Star doing a wobbly zig~zag in my rear view. And that child has a liscence to drive my car!

Then I waited. And waited. And waited. Not that I expected her to be fast but even by Star's standards the child was taking her time. Finally she hove into view....walking the bike. And carrying a pedal!!! The men in my life are now discussing spanners & threads [I thought that was [a] either slang for clothing or [b] what one used to sew with] Only Star. *sigh*

2011-12-09T03:35:00.000-08:00

"If I have a monument in this world, it is my son." ~ Maya Angelou

Two of the three musketeers returned whence they came on Thursday. It was a flying visit but at least we saw the lad. Drizzly rain saw he actually rested! His brother saw he got some crabs. The rest of us just held on for the ride.

In His Own Words.

2011-12-08T23:08:00.000-08:00

"The greatest Ag Pilot and Lover ever"

Mark 1962~ 2006

Photo c/~ The Duchess.

Unpopular Opinions & Politically Incorrect ideas.

2011-12-06T17:56:00.000-08:00

America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings." ~ Barak Obama

Ever notice the media has a thing about the world not being big enough for all of us? We gotta reduce the numbers, don'tcha know, because it's not sustainable. Zero Population. One Child Policies. Condoms for India & mass sterilization for whoever *they* can convince needs it. I have 5 kids so I guess you can figure what I think of this one. And God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth." ~ [Genesis1:28] . And that being the case I loved this post! Pause for thought.

Which brings me to an even less popular thought; we are being out~populated because instead of following the biblical mandate we're following man's. What the Ottoman Empire failed to achieved back in the 13th century they look like achieving by default in the 20th simply by having more babies. Don't believe me? Have a look at some of the birth stats: 40% of all births in France, for example, are now to Muslim women. It doesn't require a mathematical geniuses to see where this lands us ~ eventually.

And if one dare, and most won't, express a politically incorrect opinion there are shrieks & cries of racism, religious intolerance, ethnic hatred & all the rest ~ which is insane when you consider Christianity is the only religion others can dump on with impunity & without fear of reprisals. So, for the record, I do not hate Muslims. However I know my history. The stated aim of Islam is to bring the whole world into subjection to Islam & to this end a Muslim is allowed to lie, cheat, even murder with impunity because there is a declared jihad against all infidels ~ like you & me. *sigh* Can't get more politically incorrect than that.

Scare mongering? Bigotry? Well Daniel talked about this. And Ezekiel. Isaiah, John ~ book after biblical book talks about the harlotry Israel committed with the surrounding nations, about how God dealt with that ~ & about how He will continue to deal with it. What is happening in the middle east just now was foretold centuries before Christ was born. Because all the nations surrounding Israel are Islamic. What's more, without reading a word, Islamic allegiance is declared symbolically because you see it everywhere in the Islamic nations: the crescent moon. Even I get this one. Archaeology, people. The crescent moon belongs to the mother goddess; to Ishtar, to Andaste; to Manat. From the middle east through Asia minor & into Europe you will find the crescent moon depicted on artifacts & in every case it denotes mother goddess worship ~ however that transmuted over time. You will also find it in certain Catholic & Anglican artifacts ~ which is another story again.

And the point of these politically incorrect meanderings? We still have a little time; not much, but a little, in which to strengthen ourselves in the Lord. When the world as we know it starts coming tumbling down Christians are not going to be magically wafted out of the mess. God didn't refrain Nero from using Christians as human torches to light his garden parties & He didn't stop countless scores of men, women & children perishing in the arena to die by lion or sword. What He did do was give them courage for the journey. They went singing praises to their martyrdom.

Which is why speculation about which bits of the bible people believe bothers me so much. I know the savagery depicted biblically about the end times is accurate. It is not, unfortunately, metaphorical. It means exactly what it says. I may not always know exactly what it means but God does & we have been warned to prepare ourselves; to count the cost; to walk by the Spirit. We will need to.

Born to Dance.

2011-12-03T19:15:00.000-08:00

Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we're here we should dance. ~Anon

Last night; last night was the dance performance. Yes, the Star does dance. I've never been sure about this one. OK, like a lot of musical kids the child has an intrinsic sense of rhythm. I'm not sure that's enough to counterbalance her absolute refusal to count. Dance is all about counting. It may look beautiful but inside of every single body doing points & arabesques the internal metronome is going:one & two & three & four; five & six & seven & eight....

And having watched the tail end of one or two rehearsals I was groaning inwardly because these kids all need a trip to the ballet to see the real thing. Then they might realise drooping languidly like wilting flowers is so not the go! The Star & I discussed all this while she was doing the Camelot thing with Qld Ballet. I raphodised over the nice clean lines, crisp movements, nice definitions ~ which is what gives ballet its beauty. Star knows what I mean but to date she hasn't done a lot of dance because ~ well it was another thing I had to juggle & every time we started we lost the teacher. If we had to go off island I wasn't interested.

So this year Star has done dance. She is a big girl: tall, junoesque ~ a bit of a Brunhilda. No, I'm not putting the child down. I'm just saying she's not the flower~like fairy child who looks like a breath will waft her away. She's not quite the tallest but she is certainly the most solid & there is nothing beautiful about her ballet. Lucky for Star, who is not all that interested in ballet per se, they do a variety of dance: jazz, hip~hop, Latino, things like the Charleston. Lots of the kids also do some gymnastics/aerobics as well so the program was a bit of a combination of things.

I know Star has struggled. Performance hardened, her teacher quickly cottoned on to the fact that whatever was asked of Star she would do. It is bizarre but it is professional training. So Star was up there doing the same routines as the kids who have been doing this stuff for years & years. Star, who is not a rote learner but needed to learn this by rote.

I was expecting the worst but in fact the kids put on a great performance. I enjoyed it. Still, watching Star, I was rather rolling my eyes because every so often she went off the air. It is unmistakable. She goes all over the place, looses her rythmn, her spot in the sequencing BUT, never once did her big cheesy grin falter. Not once did she look like she'd rather be anywhere else doing anything else than what she was doing; putting on a most extraordinary performance! Interpret that how you will!

During interval one of the teachers up at the school came across to chat with me. We know him rather well. I used to work with him & we played soccer with him. He's math oriented. How do we always end up with the math geeks? And he was shaking his head as he said ~ & he knows Star; he knows Star's math & once said of it ~ it doesn't matter; she can sing! I know! So he's shaking his head & goes, Star's born to perform, isn't she? It seems she is.

One more & I think we're done for the year.

Children's Authors I love.

2011-12-03T15:43:00.000-08:00

For yesterday, & all tomorrows, we dance the best we know ~ Kate Seredy.

There's a reason I love libraries. Treasures are to be found there! And homeschooling mamas everywhere love a good book.

One of the best children's authors is a lady called Kate Seredy. Her writing isn't spectacular but for visual learners in particular her books are an absolute feast for the eyes! I connived for years to own my own copy of The Good Master. Indeed I coveted this book so much I seriously contemplated stealing the library's copy because no~one else could love that book as much as I did! I borrowed it so regularly & so often it was rarely actually on the library shelves.

So if she doesn't write particularly well, what is it about these books? Two things. Firstly, particularly The Good Master, which is the first of her books I read, not only are they beautifully illustrated but they are richly detailed with Hungarian folk~lore, customs, mythology pre WWI. The illustrations detail traditional customs, dress, way of life ~ & they are, without exception, exquisitely beautiful! This is living history!

Secondly the B&W illustrations are superb! Having once seen the Magyar warriors sweeping down from the Milky Way, never forgotten!

Seredy was, of course, Hungarian herself & many things besides an illustrator. She only moved to the United States at the conclusion of WWI though reading her stories you would never guess English is her 2nd language. She looked at the war & it's impact on the Hungarian people in at least 2 of her books: The Singing Tree, the sequel to the Good Master & The Chestry Oak.

I have yet to acquire my own copy of The Singing Tree. I don't want one of these modern abominations. I want the original hardback with the exquisite, detailed cover. This book is considered a *living book* by the Sonlight Curriculum & is included in both their 4 & 6 core packages. If it's not included by Charlotte Mason, it should be. It so sparked my interest & imagination as a child I researched Hungarian history for fun & learnt the saddest of sad truths: the idyll Seredy wrote of disappeared with the war. Hungary fell under communist domination & for the next decades was torn by civil unrest, rioting & rebellion.

Now here's the thing, & I will grant you I get great amusement out of God doing this sort of stuff. People are always telling me, & I say it often enough myself, that God wastes nothing! How did God not waste a child's interest in all things Hungarian?

On Saturday one of the church pastor's visited briefly with us. We knew, of course, he had recently returned to his homeland to preach. Yes it happens to be Hungary. And he shared with us how he used to watch his mother stand at the kitchen table making molotov cocktails & his father used to transport them across the city in crates to blow up something Russian. No comment. Anyway, it is the sort of European history people tend not to know about ~ only, naturally, I did. I gotta wonder about me. So we were off & running. Not that I know a lot but I knew enough to know that the 1957 uprising failed & the reprisals were awful. I knew enough to know the Hungarian people never accepted communism. Russia had a lot of trouble with that little neck of the woods. I knew it was once part of the great Austro~Hungarian Empire, an empire that outdid the Prussians [German] but is now one of the poorest of the European countries. And every time I think of this once great nation I see it in exquisite B&W detail where under the watchful eye of The Good Master Kate & Jansci grow like weeds on the great Hungarian plain.

2011-12-02T15:10:00.000-08:00

It has always been my private conviction that any man who pits his intelligence against a fish and loses has it coming. ~John Steinbeck

I ♥ my sons. I do. Really. They just drive me crazy.
This is how it went down yesterday:

Dino instructs me to pick him up from work. I am to find some obscure place I've never heard of. I am to be on time because we have to then go into the airport to pick up Theo. I cannot bring Star to navigate because Theo is bringing a friend & the car isn't big enough. All this I do.

I arrive at Dino's work to find he isn't quite ready. Fair enough. I open all the doors & sit in the car & read till he is ready. Then I am told Theo has missed his plane [not his fault] & we are going to go find some other obscure place so Dino can pick up the pro crab pots he has ordered ~ which is fine only then we have no room for the travellers. This takes forever as Dino has misheard the name of the street & we are looking for some place that doesn't actually exist. *sigh* Drop pots at friends ~ which means we are now running late to pick up Theo. Drive into airport in what is now peak hour traffic & drive round & round the airport circuit till Theo has managed to pick up his luggage & make it out to the loading zone. Load two bags, 2 boys & fishing gear into my tiny car.

The twin thing immediately kicks in. We detour all the way home. In peak hour traffic: for Kentucky~Ducky; for fishing tackle; for bait. The boys throw me out at the jetty now they have another driver with the Kentucky~Ducky & head of to pick up the pots.

My house, which is a very large house, now seems overfull. All the beds are in use. Theo has Lid's room. The guest is upstairs with Dino. There is stinky bait all over my yard. There are rods & tackle spread everywhere. My fridge is stuffed with the poor gaping things they caught this morning when they made enough noise to stampede an elephant herd & woke me as they loaded the boat with baited pots & assorted fishing gear. I tell you it is bedlam here. And I have a week of this. Is it survivable?

Behind the Scenes.

2011-12-01T02:36:00.000-08:00

"I sit down to the piano regularly at nine-o'clock in the morning and Mesdames les Muses have learned to be on time for that rendezvous." ~
Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky

If you read here you know my little girl has a voice. You know the kid's been singing with a vocal company for about 5 years now. You know I spend a good bit of my life having meltdowns over transporting said child to a variety of different venues so she can sing like a canary. You might even have picked up on the fact the child has close to a 3 octave range; a note or 2 short is all.

So imagine, as the child who has only ever wanted to sing, prepares for this year's auditions has massive trouble with her voice cracking all over the place No. Matter. What. She. Sings. Imagine, as she decides to record her voice, & all she can hear is not what she has always thought she sounded like. Indeed, she sounds downright terrible. And because Star is like that she says not a word to anyone about what is going through her head but quietly lives with the absolute horror of everything she has worked for disappearing up in smoke.

Because, let's face it, Star never listens to anything that doesn't interest her so naturally she has never listened to all the discourses on the physiological changes that take place during puberty. Her mother, on the other hand, has actually paid attention!

Now those of us with brothers & sons of a certain age have experienced the phenomena of a *breaking* male voice. What is less well known, less well documented, & far less well researched is what happens to the female voice during puberty because, while nowhere near as dramatic, the same sort of things happen to girls as to boys ~ at least so far as the voice is concerned. The child, who at 8 was cheerfully hitting the high notes in the aria from Queen of the Night is suddenly lucky to have a 6 note range without cracking.

The voice change is generally linked to the growth spurts. What happens is the larynx grows larger & thicker. Cavities in the sinus, nose & back of the throat enlarge allowing for greater resonance. The glottis may not be able to close properly because of unevenness in the vocal folds, causing a weak, breathy sound.

Over about 4 years the folds in a girl's vocal chords grow about 0.4mm [compared to a boy's 0.7mm]. The flute like little girl voice that was able to switch easily between upper & lower registers begins to change just before the menarche with the voice cracking around the G/B above middle C. Breathiness & difficulty with the lower registers occurs.

After the menarche the voice takes on a husky, heavy quality & a girl's vocal range is often all of 6 notes! You can imagine! The lower notes are usually easier to hit. This is a critical point as the changes are sporadic & unpredictable.

Post menarcheal there is a decrease in the inconsistencies, cracking, breathiness & a richer, fuller tone develops. It is now some females begin to produce a natural vibrato.

The general consensus seems to be that it is important to sing through the changes. Descending scales & the use of *sirens* are particularly helpful as they ease the transitions & exercise the whole singing range without creating undue tension.

There are few true adolescent altos ~ though alto is what Star has been singing ~ & the changes have been so dramatic even her father, not the most observant of men, has noticed. What is interesting, & what Star cannot hear ~ because she, naturally, is hearing everything she's lost ~ is what a big voice looks like emerging from the present mess. It will be darker & richer in colour & timbre ~ altogether different I think though not unfamiliar as the changes are so gradual.

Anyway I ran my suspicions past Alison & having had them confirmed I explained to Star that her world hasn't suddenly ended. She is just developing her adult voice & while it will take a little time for it to settle it is a very well trained voice & in a while it will revert to doing as it is told again. It just requires a little coddling for a bit.

2011-11-30T20:23:00.000-08:00

People say New Yorkers can't get along. Not true. I saw two New Yorkers, complete strangers, sharing a cab. One guy took the tires and the radio; the other guy took the engine. ~ David Letterman

If you were up this morning, up & with the radio on; radio on & tuned to 612 ABC Brisbane, you would have heard the girl.

We got just 12 hours notice for this one ~ less in reality because we got told it was happening but the email never came through with all the necessary details: address, call time, repertoire, dress code, performance time, until 11pm. Star fielded that. I was long gone sleepy~byes. And being the clever & thoughtful little bunny that she is she went on~line & looked up the map, took down the relevant details & was all organised by the time she came & woke me in the morning.

4.30 am! without coffee in my system & I am not highly functional! I looked at the email, did a quick calculation in my head & decided that we needed to be on the next boat, not the one we had originally planned to be on. Within 10 minutes of my feet hitting the floor we were out the door. No caffeine in the system! Ouch. Poor old Dino was abandoned to fudge a lift any way he could as he was on the boat after us. As it turned out it was a good call.

We hooted into town & down Grey Street because that was the least stressful way to do it. To the point where we crossed the bridge onto Coronation Drive we knew what we were doing. From that point on I had to trust Star. This does not come easy! I have no sense of direction but Star's navigation has improved out of sight & she did an excellent job! Absolutely brilliant. We found a park outside the studios just before 6.45 to find the bulk of VM was there before us, everyone griping about the earliness of the hour ~ only we can always outdo the lot of them thanks to the boats!

Forty~five minutes & 2 carols later we were all done & negotiating peak hour traffic out of Brisbane! Nope. Star wasn't driving! Too much for either of us. Coming out we went the way I thought we should probably have come in, only because I don't know that way half so well we opted for the tried & true route! If you click here you can see the choir in the studio. Click the link & you can hear the short segment. Star is on the left in the second pic. You all know that face, don't you!

So that was our morning. How was yours?

A little weirdness goes a long way.

2011-11-28T13:32:00.000-08:00

But he that dares not grasp the thorn Should never crave the rose. Anne Bronte

We have roses. They are not lasting long in this heat but a small spray of the little paper ones or a single dark red one in a specimen vase does so lift the heart! The gardenias are out too but the heat has done for them & they are browning before the petals even unfurl. So Sad. I do love a gardenia.

Anyway some odd things happen in this house. Ever notice? Dino came rushing in madly Saturday all excited babbling that he'd just seen a quail in our garden. Now I got all excited about that because quail, as you know, are tiny ground dwellers & rather shy, & though I used to see them regularly when we first moved here the drought & all the clearing seems to have finished them off, along with the yellow robins & the little rose robins, which I haven't seen in years & years. [Perish the thought about accusing my cats!] I was hoping to catch a glimpse of the visitor but before that happened Dino re arrived declaring it wasn't a quail after all but some weird looking *duck*. I use the term loosely ~ very loosely indeed. Not overly exciting though certainly nice to know.

Eventually I caught sight of Dino's *duck* through the kitchen windows. *sigh* No, not a duck. This is much more likely. Probably not the Lewin's if those stats are correct but certainly a member of the family. I know we get them as I've seen them before, though never more than just the one & very irregularly if we have a wetter than usual season. Our garden is being kept very damp just now, which is what has attracted it.

So, one rail. The next morning I got up to find both cats prowling the house with their ears pricked & their fur all on end. This usually means the snakes in the walls are moving around & driving my animals crazy. Yes, I know. We live in the country; we have wild life, OK? I paddled down the stairs & as I hit the hallway floor there was an almighty QUORK!!! from under my feet. The cats & I all lept backwards. Yep, the stupid bird had got in under the house & was making the strangest assortment of noises that kept the cats on edge all morning.

At some point I am likely to sprook about any of the following, all of which are on my desk right now & all of which I am randomly reading: Mad Dogs & Englishmen ~ the sort of racey & personal history I can get quite excited about! The Islamic Anti~Christ & God's War on Terror ~ something for you all to look forward too, yes? ☺ Prepare yourself, people. We're on holidays I I have plenty of time for rabbitting on endlessly!

Journey for One.

2011-11-26T19:10:00.000-08:00

"What is that to you? You follow me!" John 21:20-24

IN my insatiable curiosity about what makes other people tick I can get lost in a maze of my own making. It takes the Lord to straighten me out. Thorny dilemmas. If the Lord prayed that we should all be one then shouldn't we all be on the same path? Yadda, yadda. And I know, because I've been told, & I've been shown, that the Lord is separating His people, calling them out from amongst the worldly & I know the call is to repentance, to holiness, to righteousness ~ and the call is for the church as a whole, who have fallen so far from the high ideals of the gospel.

And it's a right royal pain in the whasit, you know, because there are things I do not have licence to partake off while the bulk of the church prances on it's merry way totally oblivious & my sense of the justness & fairness of things gets slightly warped because, why is it ok for them but not for me? You can see where this sort of thinking lands me. Yes?

So holding my pity party for one & having a good old whinge in the Lord's ear about my self~induced muddle I was brought up short. "What is that to you? Follow me." Ummm......Okaaay. Yikes. I've been told.

Because: My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me....And that is the bottom line, isn't it?    In some way or fashion every single Christian should be hearing from the Lord & obeying His direct commands. I am not accountable before the Lord for others, only for myself, & so I know I will be making some changes, gradually because I'm not the most organized of people & the Lord in grace & mercy gives me a fair bit of leeway to meander into line in my own lackadaisical fashion ~ but fall into line I must.

So chatting to the Lord about another of my quandaries because I know my history & that means I have serious issues with the whole Christmas trad thing, which is pagan to the very core ~ do some reading for yourselves if you don't believe me 'cause I can rant till the cows come home & the majority of Christians won't be moved ~ & I figured the Lord would have an opinion, don'tcha know.

Now I could give you a history lesson on the pagan heart of Christmas but there are plenty of sites round that do a much better job than I can; or I could point you to the scriptures that can be used most effectively to point out Christmas trees et al are beyond the pale but I figure if you've read them & breezed on then why bother?   Besides a number of my issues are directly related to our time working with the homeless because you have to question something that sparks peak amounts of domestic violence & family breakdown ~ but that's me. You try looking into the eyes of some kid who knows they can't go home for Christmas & that there will be no presents, no festive cheer for them & their place of refuge is likely to be closed for the day while someone else celebrates. Yeah. It can make you jaded.

So I asked. I can't say I got a nice clear answer of the sort I like but I did get an answer because the Lord knows we have always been very low key about the whole Christmas deal. At best the Lord is indifferent to our participation.   He would prefer we didn't & He has given me a number of ideas for changes I can ~ & will be making, over the next few years.

The thing is the Lord is all for celebration. So much so He laid down the times & seasons for us to celebrate & we have been making our first exploratory steps in this new direction because we are meant to be a distinct people, separated from the world ~ not for legalism's sake but because there should be a discernible difference that separates a believer from a non~believer as a witness & a testimony. I am starting to think different people get given a different witness in this area. The whole idea of plainness obviously comes to mind but I do not have the usual call to plainness. Nothing, for me, seems to follow the "usual" lines.

As we, obviously gentile, will be grafted into the root & stock of Jesse the Lord has been directing ~ & redirecting~ my attention back to His premises ~ not to put us under the Law because the Law cannot save but as a declaration of difference, separateness, sanctification, ~ & the grace & mercy of the Lord.

Just why this is so I'm not sure. I suspect it is to do with the promise the Lord gave me that all our children would be taught of Him Himself & that His word would not depart from our household. Which is not to say we are anything special because we're not, just that because of that He wants clear delineation lines drawn up. So I have been looking at these ~ so lovely! I just adore candle light, don't you? And these.

Yes I know all these are outward things & the Lord looks on the heart. People don't. On the whole people look on the outward things & when they can see a discernible difference they are much more likely to question. At least, that's the theory.

And the clincher? As my Dino has grown in the Lord he has begun to question & he has landed pretty much where I have. Why does the church not teach us how to walk in the old paths wherein we might find rest for our souls? Um ~ 'nother history lessons on the roots of paganism & witchcraft in the early church. *sigh* So, yeah. And you know, I am up to my ears in paper 'cause that child is looking at heading into theological college next year & you know, don't you, who will be fielding the thorny questions, being the sounding board, referred to on research questions.

And all this without neglecting the greater questions of loving each other, our enemies & the Lord our God.

2011-11-25T17:21:00.000-08:00

There is a great deal to dislike about this time of year: the heat; the humidity; the Christmas madness; exams; hordes of kids released for the school hols; but amongst all the things I gripe about periodically there are things I anticipate with pleasure because all over Queensland now is the time of year both the Poinsiana [see lovely pics here] & the Jacaranda flower. Both are lovely spreading shade trees & earlier, farsighted councils, planted them along the footpaths so that now the streets are carpeted in red & mauve & the red flames against the burnished sky & the mauve fades into it.

Our Poinsiana flowers late. It is a rather shabby tree that was damaged when we got it & has struggled through the years of drought & random prunings so we can reach our front door but each year it still gamely throws out the great sprays of brilliant red flowers that announce summer is well & truly here!

Yep there is a house in there somewhere. We have worked very hard the years we've been here to get our garden up & running. One of the quirkier quirks of the old island was that whenever someone needed *sand* they removed all some~one else's topsoil so when we bought our block of land we were down to a bedrock of clay & ironstone that baked like cement. As they side of the house faces the west it became unbearably hot through the summer months no matter how much of a breeze we got off the water from the other direction.

So another performance down; another mainland trip with Dearest in stifling heat & today I am just grateful to be home with the clouds bearing down on the heat & a breeze ruffling the water. Much better.

Driving with Star.

2011-11-23T14:23:00.000-08:00

And I, I took the road less traveled by. I was using a GPS system. ~Robert Brault

If you want to know how badly the education system fails our kids just try teaching a kinesthetic learner how to drive a car. The point is moot if you yourself are a kinesthetic learner. I'm telling you it is an experience never to be forgotten ~ & if one can help it never, absolutely never, to be repeated!

Liddy is a kinesthetic. She treated the car as an extension of herself. Where she looked, there the car went! It was hairy. Ask her little sister. On pain of having to exercise their legs her passengers were barred from commenting ~ which meant a lot of gurgling noises from the back seat where Star was manfully restraining herself.

Naturally Liddy was anticipating her revenge when said little sister began to drive herself. What she failed to take into account is that Star is not a kinesthetic learner. Star, like her mama, is a visual learner. Star has never once aimed the car at some unfortunate pedestrian & gunned the motor. She transitioned smoothly from passenger to driver with only the occasional blond moment when the car has stalled or she has forgotten ignition is necessary to movement.

Just the same I was leery of letting her loose on the main roads on the mainland. None of my children are reknowned for following instructions obediently & I am tired of hearing, "Chill, mother," after yet another incident guarenteed to add more grey to my rapidly greying locks! Unfortunately there is only one way to learn to drive a car & that is to get behind the wheel & do it!

Star has been pottering around the island more than compently for the past few months so I let her loose on the mainland car. The mainland car does not have power steering. It really needs to be manhandled around corners & round~a~bouts, objects strenously to rapid acceleration & has gears more widely spaced than Star has grown used to. In & out to singing & Star was doing very well indeed. So well in fact, I took a risk. I drove in to town on Sunday because Star's parking is dodgy & I wasn't about to risk it in the middle of Brisbane but coming out was another matter entirely. Traffic was light so I passed Star the keys.

Star, as the youngest & most indulged of a long, long tail has the sort of shattering self~confidence that sank the Titanic. She promptly negotiated herself out of the QPAC parking & into the outward flow of Brisbane traffic with nary a quibble. She has travelled this route so often [& had to navigate me] she needed no direction. We had one little wobble where the lanes squirm all over the road as they condense from 5 lanes to just one but with no other cars around it didn't matter & she will remember another time. I was very pleased. Until.

Until we pulled up at the jetty. Star mamothly misjudged the curb & hit it with a resounding bang! Indeed she hit it so hard she popped my hub~cap & broke it. *sigh* A little more practise on the essential things needed it seems.

2011-11-21T19:39:00.000-08:00

Heat, ma'am! it was so dreadful here, that I found there was nothing left for it but to take off my flesh and sit in my bones. ~Sydney Smith, Lady Holland's Memoir

It doesn't matter what the calender says; Summer has arrived. I know because of the cats. Kirby has taken up residence on the chest freezer. He is constantly available for chucks under the chin but is lovely & cool ~ though he is always a little leery getting up. He knows the lids opens!

Marlow is sprawled along the stereo. Every so often there is a thunk because Marlow has forgotten he cannot spread his legs & roll luxuriently when he is up so high.

I am so pleased to be done schooling. Despite the breeze wafting through all the windows the thermometer is hovering just above the 30C mark & the humidity is stifling. Ugh. We are melting like a butter stick into greasy little pools!

Happy Christmas, Liddy! ♥

2011-11-21T14:56:00.000-08:00

There was no need to do any housework at all. After the first four years the dirt doesn't get any worse. ~Quentin Crisp

Yesterday was the day, you know. I dragged Star kicking & screaming through the last 2 pages of her math: percentages which I have no hope of being able to do but it does not require a mathematical head to work out if your answer is less than 1/2 when you are only meant to reduce by 25% then something is very wrong. Star insisted that the computer does not make mistakes. Nor it does but if the user is feeding it random information a little common sense goes a long way! *sigh* Star, at least, understood what she was meant to be doing ~ she just didn't want to do it but our work returns are already very late & the chips are down round here. Next week 2 extra males land in this house & only a very optimistic idiot would expect anything but bedlam & chaos. Next week we go into rehearsals for Spirit of Christmas [QPAC]. Next week we run out of November & in a month we run out of year, so. And so.

Anyway, having written Star's name legibly on all her work because, sad to say, the child's handwriting still looks like a bomb exploded on the page [yes, we use her computer for nearly all her written work!] & packaged everything up into the relevant envelop ready for today's mail, I turned my attention to my house.

Now I have met those wonderful women who can run their own lives & everyone else's into the bargain without getting a hair ruffled out of place ~ but I am not one of them. I do some things well. I can even do a number of different things well but the more things I'm juggling the ball I'm most likely to drop first is the house because there is nothing intrinsically exciting about scrubbing the loo or even sweeping the floor & neither had been done for some weeks. It was past time to do some necessary housework. In fact it was time to do what I rarely do & actually move furniture in order to clean behind it, under it & around it. This was made easier by actually being able to dispose of all the school stuff that usually clutters my living room & can't be touched in case it disappears never to be found again!

Yes, this post does have a point because back here Liddy had a meltdown over losing her brand new camera cord. Despite several massive hunts that necessitated tearing the house apart & lots of angst & heartache the cord still hadn't appeared when Liddy boarded her plane for Holland. I had that terrible sinking sensation you get when you think you might just be responsible but have no clear memory of what you've done. I do remember finally throwing in the bin a whole heap of stray cords that no longer seemed to belong to anyone . It was certainly feasible that Lid's camera cord was amongst them.

Then yesterday, heaving the heavy couch away from the wall so I could mop my foot kicked something scrunched up & still tied with the original black plastic tie; Lid's missing camera cord! Not where she swore black & blue she'd last seen it. Not, obviously, carelessly dropped beside the couch because it would have been found months ago. Nope. Waaaaay back yonder amongst the dust balls, stray cat hair & dead spiders where even stray long implements fishing for missing items are unlikely to find it.

Guess it goes in the mail some time soon. Happy Christmas, Liddy!

2011-11-21T00:03:00.000-08:00

Yippy~de~doo~da. Hallelujiah! We are done for the year! Academics at least. The music doesn't count! Last year coming up!

2011-11-20T02:39:00.000-08:00

The temp was hitting 29/30C & it was stifling in town. Something else to hate about Brisbane. I should make a list sometime; set it to rhyme.

We were in at the mall just before lunch ~ & I opted to nip in under QPAC rather than risk the dubious Brisbane parking. Having being assured the mall was "Just across the Bridge" we hiked.

Alison had all 3 choirs performing outside Myer today. AVAE is the smallest but a couple of big voices & well trained harmoy [& the mikes of course] meant a big, big sound. We got really good crowds for all three 1/2 hour gigs.

Star having a serious moment. Most of the time she had a grin from ear to ear.

In between, snacks! I just love the orange polos! You can see them 1/2 way across town. Impossible to miss. You always know when VM is in town!

Exaudi Australis is the showpiece choir. Older of course & many perform regularly as professionals ~ & boy are they good! They did the best Rockin' Jerusalem! Their other piece was Lux Aurumque ~ which has an amazing story & is the *Virtual Choir's* showpiece. You can hear them here singing the Lux. When it was done virtually every singer rehearsed their part independently & only came together online, yes, online, not in person! for the performance. The result is truly amazing! Lovely piece.

Then we went round the corner to JBs to choose videos as part of our non Christmas celebrations. I have to call them that because I don't actually know what we're doing yet & I have just a week to pull something together. Isn't life exciting?!

Another can of worms.

2011-11-18T14:54:00.000-08:00

Ok, now before we start I'm not in the business of telling anyone what they should do. I just like to ask the questions. Firstly because I like taking a wander in other people's head spaces & seeing how they think & secondly because in thinking an issue through out loud I can gnaw at it like a terrier at an old bone. I've been told before that I can come across as very unloving ~ so! I do not mean to get anyone's backs up. Just so you know. When I want to get your back up I'll say so. OK?

My dear friend, Ember, left me a comment in my chat on hair. It was a lovely, long, thoughtful comment, as Ember's so often are but I have been puzzling over something she said ~ & I am starting to wonder if my more literal minded children may not have got that particular trait from their father after all! I shall quote her because I should hate to misrepresent what she has actually said.

I like to think of it that the Bible can be understood as a manual or as a map.

If thinking of it as a manual, the reader would think 'Hmm - headcovering? What does the Bible say on headcovering?', look it up in the index, and follow the instructions written there.

If thinking of the Bible as a map, then 'Headcovering' is a road or place on the journey, it has a bearing and relationship with the 'You Are Here' spot, and with the Peaceable Kingdom towards which we are journeying. And travelling to the Peaceable Kingdom may (or not) pass through or along Headcovering.

Now I have a problem. I don't read maps very well. In all honesty I usually end up headed in the completly opposite direction ...which brings us to manuals. I don't do so well with those either. My mother's perpetual cry during my growing up years was "Read the instructions first!" None of us ever did.

Over the years, 5 decades now & counting, I have watched what the church has done to the scriptures & if I look at my history I get rather goggle~eyed because no~one but priests could read Latin & they didn't want to share 'cause knowledge is power & they wanted the power. Sorry. Sidetracking. I'm a bit like that.

Where was I? Right. So I'm used to hearing ordained clergy declare things like, "Well the bible isn't meant to be read literally you know", or "Jesus wasn't a real historical figure", or more recently, "It doesn't matter whether Jesus really existed or not"....

I have a problem with all of those statements though I know that each can be defended intellectually. I have a problem because once you start declaring this bit or that bit isn't true/revevent/meant to be taken literally the whole thing starts to come apart in your hands. Of course that could just be me but where do you then draw the line?

Anyway what came to my rather chaotic mind, surfacing from amongst the random flotsam & jetsam that inhabits my inner spaces, was the O.T bit where..was it Hezikiah? The newly appointed king who found the abandonded Scriptures & having read them decided Israel was in serious trouble & turned the whole unweildly nation around & back to worshipping God the way He wanted to be worshipped.

And in looking for the relevant scripture I got sidetracked. I know! It happens to me a lot. I landed on some site, which I suspect is by no means exhaustive, & they listed 281 scriptures which all say basically the same thing: Therefore thou shalt love the LORD thy God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments, alway.

Or by the N.T but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart;

Which brings me to my problem. See, if we only take bits as applicable, which bits? And just so's we're clear here, even keeping the basic judaic food laws is so complicated I abandonded even looking into them ~ & I did look because there is a reason the Jews have managed to survive relatively disease free for centuries. What gets them wiped out tends to be more along the lines of judgements [I gotta stop reading the prophets!] ~ pogroms, holocausts, racial hatred of the most vitrolic sort. And as someone with super sensitive skin I actually wish our clothing manafacturers would obey the injunction to not mix fabrics!

Sorry. Digressing is a bad habit of mine. Anyway on another issue completely a very godly young woman once stated that when it came to God's word she found it was rather like travelling down a highway [or words to that effect]. The road was wide & she could choose where to travel on it but it ran along the edge of a deep precipce with no guard rails & she had determined that it was safest & wisest to travel as close to the mountain as possible. Risk & danger lay in travelling too close to the edge.

I think I have come to that conclusion as well. I am probably wrong but I think I will err on the side of caution. I've tried travelling the edge & in the end I was left feeling there were no absolutes. Everything was open for interpretation. Nothing could be trusted. One can not travel in freedom if one feels insecure.

So, how do you read your bible, people? Literally? Interpretatively? And what do you do with the bits you don't like? We've all got those, haven't we?! Do share.

2011-11-16T14:57:00.000-08:00

In the case of Caravaggio, it was the mind of a genius. A murderer and a madman, perhaps, but certainly a genius ~ The Lost Painting.

I knew the name. If pushed I might have recognized one or two of the paintings but Caravaggio is one of those names....& there are so many of them! For the most part his work is not something that grabs me. The exception is The Taking of Christ ~ which is darkly dramatic & reminds me of El Greco. Not stylistically but in the dramatic expression of story & the contrasts of dark & light, the sometimes brooding quality.

Anyway, browsing our library shelves yet again, because this is the term I spend most of my life curled up in odd corners reading while Star stars dontcha know, I came across Jonathon Harr's The Lost Painting ~ the story of tracing & finding one of Caravaggio's lost works, the Taking of Christ. Here it is:

Isn't it something?! The dramatic lighting. The richness of the colours. The dark background. Christ looks a little wimpy but pretty typical for the times.

Ok so I rather enjoy the tedious work that constitutes most research, the meticulous gathering of obscure facts, the flashes of insight that illuminate so much, the painstaking ransacking through stuff that should have been decently interred centuries ago. Not everyone does. Writing about it is even less exciting.

Harr's style is dry & journalistic ~ & in all honesty I found his writing style tedious & more than a little dull. So much so that I put this book down for over a week & forgot about it. The story itself is fascinating & it was well worth pursuing for that alone because it is a tale of high drama from the obscure post graduate students who sent the hounds baying to the Italian restorer who nearly destroyed the painting before he'd even begun! Along the way I learnt something of Caravaggio, who was most certainly mad as & a nasty piece of work into the bargain, art restoration, & the chasing of bunny trails to determine the authenticity of any given art work. One of the great modern detective stories & a true one at that!

Link here to view more of Carravaggio's paintings.

Prayer Alert!

2011-11-16T04:11:00.000-08:00

Prayer please for OM Chile's Children's Ministry. Edit from the girl: . I have lost my children's ministry leader. This is causing complications for the ministry for the boys of el Arca[ We still have the "Head" children's ministry leader.], which is jeapodising the ministry & upsetting the Chile team. Thank you, friends.

Does it not mean what it says or do we just not care?

2011-11-15T13:58:00.000-08:00

But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering.~1 Cor.11:15

I forget which church I was in but it was recent & not my usual church. I was a little behind the 8~ball ~ which happens to me a lot~ so there was this moment after we'd been asked to bow our heads for prayer when I was left gazing abstractly at the long row of heads obediently bowed in front of me & I was struck by something. Every single head was female ~ & not one of them had long hair! Not a one. There wasn't a headcovering in sight either but that is another issue entirely because often the people against headcoverings argue their hair is given them as a covering ~ no matter how short it is. Hm.

Now here's the thing, because we don't want to be all legalistic about things as if works can save us & I've had *Grace* quoted at me until the mere mention of the word has me rolling my eyes in quite a Star~like manner, but if Every scripture inspired of God is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness: [2Tim.3:16] then shouldn't we at the very least investigate the matter further? And, as His dearly beloved children, shouldn't we want to do what is pleasing in His sight?

Hair is easy for me. I like my hair long. I've worn it long for most of my life ~ except for a few years after my twins were born & I had lots of young children & very little time for vanity of any sort. During those years I wore my hair very short indeed. My daughters are not so keen. Liddy has thick, heavy hair but has compromised by thining her hair & keeping it long enough to scoop up in a pony tail. Star wants shorter than short hair but has also compromised because I have refused point blank to consider shaving her head to the bone! I layered Star's hair according to her instructions & she is very happy with the result.

So what does the bible say? And having read what it says, does it mean what is says? ~ because I've had *cultural context* shoved down my throat ad infinitum also.

Hair is mentioned 64 times in the bible but only 15 times in the N.T ~ & of those 15 times only 2 are applicable & both of those are in the same Corinthians' passage. The Greek word used is Komao ~ from kome ~ meaning to wear tresses of hair & those tresses are given as a covering. By implication this means long hair because culturally [there's that word!] women's veils were a good deal longer back then than they are now!

Partly, I believe, is than God dislikes gender confusion & always draws clear distinctions between men & women. Hair is another aspect of that; Men = keep it short!; women ~ grow it long!

I have heard women tell me, over & over because the heart is deceitful above all things! how hair is a matter of the heart; that God looks on the heart; that it is our attitude that matters not the length of our hair ~ & these arguements sound convincing because hair is not a salvation issue. Nope, not at all. However, having had to deal with the covering issue myself, I would argue that how we see our hair & what we do about what the bible says is indicative of a fundamental heart issue because at the root of the whole discussion is a heart issue: a rebellious nature driven to have its own way or a heart of submission. We can argue till the cows come home that God looks on the heart ~ & so He does; not even an arguable point. But what does He see when He looks on our hearts? A heart submitted to Him even in the little things ~ or a heart prepared to disregard His very clear instructions? After He clearly says that if we love Him we will obey His commands?

One final thought. Hair is one of the easy things. Seriously. Loving my enemies? Now that's hard! I'd so much rather fire fell from heaven & obliterated them from the face of the earth. It's hard enough just loving the people I like. So what do you think?

2011-11-15T04:00:00.000-08:00

Gardening requires lots of water - most of it in the form of perspiration. ~Lou Erickson

There are no prizes for guessing what we were doing this weekend. So I sat through the rehearsal & I sat through the performance & I think I am losing my voice. Why Iam I the one losing my voice? I'm not singing. I'm not doing much of anything. And again next weekend. I tell you, I am over the mainland!!!

Then it decided to get stinking hot. And humid. I am wilting. The cats are wilting. There should be laws against trying to school in 100% humidity wth the thermometer hitting the high 30s. I wish we were done. Nearly but not nearly enough.

The garden looks like it's on steroids. Perhaps I shouldn't ask.

2011-11-08T20:06:00.000-08:00

And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, divers kinds of tongues. 1 Cor.12:28

The church is like an itch I keep scratching at, which is sorta sad but there you go! Because I read my bible & in my own muddly way I try, you know ~ to do what it says; to obey God's commands; to grow up in Christ. And every which way I turn the church, on the whole, is a stumbling block & it is driving me crazy.

I am not going to rant about Christmas ~ which is extremely rantable ~ nope, not even the whole put Christ back in Christmas thing 'cause in all honesty I don't think Christ was ever in it ~ which is a long, complicated historical unravelling of the symbols & pagan origins of just about the whole lot! And it was the church, yep, the church that designed & fed us the whole unholy mess!

But that is where you end up when you start ditching God's design for things because God put something in place to prevent these very things. Indeed He did. The church was designed to be built on a firm foundation. First apostles ~ the sent ones. Call them missionaries if you like, though that term has broadened to mean more than simply proclaiming the gospel to people. Secondly, prophets. Apostles & prophets, the twin watch towers of the early church.

Now unless you belong to a Charismatic, Apolistic or Pentecostal church your church probably doesn't have an operating prophet ~ & even if you do the chances are they're not operating as a prophet, merely exercising a prophetic gift. 'Cause, the thing is, don'tcha know, that the prophets aren't comfortable people to have around. They have a thing about the status quo. They pinged Israel off so bad Israel demanded: Stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel! [Isaiah30:10]

And there you have it. To the best of my understanding a prophet's job is to confront people with the Holy One of Israel. When that happens you get the exhortation, the strengthening, the encouragement, comfort, warning & judgment because instead of comparing themselves to the world or to each other, people see how far they fall short of the glory of God. Prophets are like the scout on point, so far ahead of the main party if they start bleating you wanna start paying attention.

So where are the prophets? There's lots of people round these days calling themselves prophets [& don't you just love the irony?!] but all too often what I'm hearing is a lot of feel good blather. Now God may be saying all sorts of stuff. What would I know? Some of it I agree with. We are bringing judgement down upon our heads & we seem totally unaware of it. Yes, there's a harvest for the having [but where are the workers?]. Yep, God is calling a remnant out ~ BUT....first things first. What is the point? That there be a holy, sanctified, righteous people wholly dedicated to their God, a fitting bride for His son.

We cannot compromise. We cannot say, as we have been for far too long, God understands; we're living in the Age of grace. So He does & so we are but that is not licence for unrighteousness or things that displease our Lord. We are called out to be set apart, dedicated, different [how many ways can I say it?] because God does not change. He is the same yesterday, today, forever. His standards have not changed.

I think that message is as about as popular as ever! Because people haven't changed. We want our cake & to eat it too. We think a little sin will go unnoticed, not understanding a little pollutes the whole. We like to be liked. We are designed to be social so we crave to fit in. It is far more comfortable!

Well I have news for you! God doesn't care about our comfort. God cares far more about our characters than we do. He's not interested in how well you know your scriptures. Your catechism. Your hymns & psalms. How well do you know Him? How closely are you following after Him? Have you picked up your cross?

And here's the cruncher. I just love this because the Israelites were all for getting Moses between themselves & God. Go talk to Him for us, they begged ~ & Moses did. And when he came down off the mountain after talking with God he had to hide his face with a veil because so much glory shone forth! When was the last time you had to wear a veil so you didn't dazzle people with the glory of God resting on you? Yeah, me too. I'm working on it.

The trap is either people say, well our righteousness is in Christ ~ which it is, but they use that as an excuse not to do anything themselves. Or, they try doing everything in their own strength & fall into the pit of *works.* Neither will suffice. Moses spent Time with God. This is the key. If we do this one thing all else falls into place.

In my study this morning I came across this: The word know is used differently in the bible but we keep translating it the same when it does not always mean the same thing. We all know Psalm 46:10

~ Be still & know that I am God.

Here the word know is talking of experiential knowledge ~ & this is the thing we've most been taught to distrust in the west thanks to the reformers who have put so much emphasis on holding on by faith. There is a time & a place for that ~ but it is not the whole story. It is much easier to hold on with faith when you know the one in whom you have put your trust!

Likewise it is much easier to be holy, righteous, different when we know God. Really know Him. In all His aspects. As Love, & majesty, as wrath & judgement, as Creator & as Lord & King. And when Christ returns may He find us a people prepared, who have cleansed themselves & practised the art of holiness that we might serve as priests forever of our Lord & our God.

2011-11-05T19:00:00.000-07:00

Hey, Figaro! I'm here.

Figaro here, Figaro there,

Figaro up, Figaro down...

We are tired, so very, very tired. And achy. It has been a big few days. So having lugged the girl to rehearsal for this we just made our last boat home & had to be back again for the dress rehearsal to tweak the things they didn't get right the night before. Luckily Star is a happy bunny & it takes more than a few late nights & long days to turn her into a grumpy bum. Me, I'm doing less well in the let's not be grumpy stakes. This might be local but we still do big hours travelling.

So my poor household arrived in scattered bits & pieces to listen to a fabulous concert ~ which is why I rant so much when local artists don't get supported. I've heard Marie sing her whole life ~ she once sounded rather like Star. Now her voice is richer, darker, like mahogany & dark molasses, with all the control & naunce years of experience give. She sang Dido's Lament from Dido & Aeneas for starters. Dimitri I've only heard in class, doing scales, of all things! He did an absolutly fabulous Largo al Factotum from Figaro [Il Barbiere de Siviglia]~ really, really funny! Even the kids, like Star, who didn't know the opera got the idea & were hard put not to giggle themselves silly on stage.

In all honesty, half the time I have no idea what I'm listening to ~ I just know when I like it & it sounds good. The first half of the program had a lot of things I like: The Findlandia; the humming chorous from Madam Butterfly; the Thais & Faure's Pavane, which I never get tired of listening to.

After the break we did Faure's Requiem ~ which I only like in bits & whose Paradisum I can now never hear without thinking of the ballet. It was used for a stunning duet in that.

My belongings scattered to their various homes while, as Marie so succintly put it, I went to feed the beast, aka Star! We are so tired of fast food & I don't think either of us could have faced another Maccas meal so I took her round the corner to the Arabica ~ which turned out to be a great choice. Having consulted with the girl about how hungry she was as oppossed to how much she could eat without it affecting her diaphram [the things I have to take into consideration!!!!] I decided if I got basically one meal & divided it we'd be about right, which is what I did. I didn't even get a proper meal as such. We opted for herb & cheese bread [which was very yummy] & a side salad, which was fresh, crisp & undressed & really lovely! We should have left it at that but the Arabica does a spectacular array of desserts & sad to say we succumbed! It was Star's undoing. I managed my whoopie pie but Star had gone for the banana & caramal cake & it was just too much in the end.

Back to the dressing room, which always looks quite haunted with everyone's Blacks hanging desolately from every free projection & not a soul in sight. I waited till most of the choir had arrived then went & found myself a seat again. And we did it all again! Good thing I like the music!

And just in case you believe singers don't work hard Star complained bitterly about how hot & sweaty she was after the first concert. By the time we were running for our boat she was looking white with exhaustion ~ & of course the evening's excitement wasn't done with yet! As I climbed out of the car I was greeted with that lovely fried electrical smell & I thought if that was my car I was in serious trouble! It wasn't. It was someone else's car burning merrily a little further down the car park & as we bolted along the bayside walk for our boat the fire brigade arrived with all it's bells & whistles blaring.

And just so you know, we are performing next week too! I could sleep for a week!

2011-11-03T15:12:00.000-07:00

Australia has often struggled against perceptions of it being a colonial backwater and cultural desert populated by uncouth people with funny accents. ~ Mike Reddy

I thought we were over it, I really did. I thought we'd moved on, grown up. It seems not. Which is embarrassing. Donald Horne was carping on about it over 30 years ago when I was at university. Don't know him? He's the man who coined the catch~phrase, The Lucky Country ~ Bet you know the phrase if you're an Aussie! A scathing condemnation of the laisse faire attitude of Australians to just about everything. I bet our present politics would give him a right old conniption ~ but I digress.

There's something about the people of a country where being able to fix a fan belt with a pair of stockings is a basic survival skill~ a marketable commodity. We have produced more than our fair share of innovators. We have produced more than our fair share, per capita, of medical breakthroughs, science breakthroughs, & performing artists. We produce them, then won't pay them, don't value them & complain bitterly about the country's *brain drain* as all these clever & innovative people take of for distant shores & more appreciative countries. Hence Donald Horne's book, The Lucky Country, which was, at least in part, an indictiment of our acceptance of the mediocre when we could be so much more than that.

Which brings me 30 years on. I thought we were over the, if it comes from Europe/America it's gotta be better mentality. I mean, we have the Sydney Opera House, recognizable all over the world. I'm sticking with the arts thing, which I know something about, but I figure if we're still caught in the arts department, which is generally less conservative in its thinking, what hope is there for any other field?

Now my beef is multi~layered. There's the We don't value the Arts thing. We don't teach it in school. Phuleese! Half an hour of singing a week while the class teacher champs at the bit because she has a class full of remedial mathematicians does not constitute training in artistic appreciation. Nor does painting class on Friday afternoons if no~one has got more than 3 demerits that weeks & all their spelling right. Nope just doesn't cut it.

Then there's the whole snobbery thing, which believe you me is alive & well & thriving in Australia! I adore the ballet. I have loved being able to sit in on rehearsals, watch it on the monitors in the Green Room, see the actual performance. I choke on the ticket prices. The cost is prohibitive. It puts a lot of the Arts beyond the reach of the average Jo. Even when I was working at a very well paying job in Sydney I could not afford the ticket prices. However I had a good friend who worked in the ticket office at the Opera House & she passed along tickets to dress rehearsals for just about everything! I saw some wonderful productions because of it. As a nation Jo Average should not be reduced to scabbing tickets to Arts performances. Really. Sadly, but far too true, the Arts are for the well to do ~ which then means we continue to produce a population far more interested in the State of Thuggery than the latest ballet, or musical, or symphony. After all, a ballet dancer is a better & far more flexible athlete than your average footballer.

Then there is the whole, attitude of the Arts being an extra ~ something you get as a leftover & not really worth spending money on, certainly not as a first priority. Now, I do not know who is to blame, state funding, National funding, or Arts companies, but when a part is dictated by whether or not an auditioner can fit into old costumes or not, something is very wrong! And it wasn't just Star & Tosca. It is other performances as well. I hear a lot of gossip at different times & this one just breaks my heart.

So what brought this on? Well, the Hamburgh Symphoniker. It is being brought out, at great cost & public expense, to tour Australia next year. Or so I've heard. Ticket prices are soo far beyond the Pale that even if I wanted to I'd have to do more than sell my soul to afford just one ticket. We are paying for air fares [for both musicians & instruments], accommodation, & performance costs. I have no doubt that this is a great symphony & performances will be fantastic. BUT, & it is a very big but, all that money could have been better used to promote our own artists! Get bums on seats out here for our own people. We are not 2nd rate! We just aren't. Most of our people have trained & worked with the best there is overseas because that's where they can get work. That's where the scholarships are. That's the Cultural Cringe. Still. Time to grow up. Time to reverse the snobbery & make our own symphonies, our own opera, our own theatre a priority; sink the money into our own productions; educate our kids to appreciate something besides the schoolboy antics on the footie pitch. After all, that's what the rest of the world does!

2011-11-02T15:12:00.000-07:00

The thing about family disasters is that you never have to wait long before the next one puts the previous one into perspective. ~Robert Brault,

Families. They're great, aren't they?! And they tend to know each other's habits well. Embarrassingly well sometimes. Like Liddy, I don't like everybody being able to see when I'm on~line. For one thing being on~line doesn't mean I'm actually there & for another it doesn't necessarily mean I'm available to chat. I keep the hidden icon on on most things because I'm anti~social like that. I don't function well overtired & barely awake. My propensity for foot in mouth disease increases proportionally!

However....knowing this Liddy has her methods. Firstly she knows I am likely to be on~line & unrushed first thing in the morning between bible reading & prayer time & before Star surfaces. And she knows I hate the t.v so there's a good chance I will be online in the evenings unless Star is performing, just vegging. So I wasn't surprised when my FB icon informed me Liddy wanted to skype & I should stop whatever else it was I was doing & spend time with her.

Liddy has been on her *cultural experience* for 2 weeks with very limited internet so we didn't chat for my birthday & we hadn't caught up in some time. It's not that we don't love each other, or don't care but we are both extraordinarily busy. We have left each other brief notes on FB. I've sent short but newsy e~mails, posted pictures & figure the girl is smart enough to read my blog if I haven't done any of those things to see what is going on ~ & so she does. A lot has happened while she was having her *cultural experience*.

What that was in reality was that Lid simply lived with a Chilean family for those 2 weeks & she loved it & had a ball except for one thing; she couldn't communicate!!! This is a talkative family. Star's perpetual cry as we travel is, Talk to me! Right down to the cats, people in this house talk about whatever is on their minds ~ad nauseum sometimes. We can gnaw a subject right down to the bone! Wagging our tongues is what we do for entertainment. Not being able to wag her tongue to some purpose is frustrating Liddy no end.

Her Chilean Spanish is coming along slowly. She is understanding a lot but only able to mangle her responses. Being able to Skype occasionally & rabbit on in her native tongue without fear of being misunderstood, not understood at all or constantly asked to repeat herself, is a huge relief. I understand, having lived in places where people's first language isn't English. Constantly struggling to understand & make oneself understood is exhausting!

Bonus, both her father & Star were up early & she was able to participate virtually in all the little, silly, in~family joking & quirkiness. Living with a Star in the house means everybody else is dun coloured by comparison. It's something you really miss when you are used to it & it's suddenly not there any more. Star has a way of putting life into perspective.

Liddy doesn't know how lucky she is. Getting me for anything this term is very hit & miss. Star is, as always, over committed. Being over committed meant she missed last week's extra rehearsal, called to deal with the Sinfonia, but I figured one email asking for the music she didn't have & she could rehearse herself this week. Oh, how I wish it were that easy!

The choir was printed on the program as performing music they didn't even have yet!!! Mad scramble now to bring everyone up to scratch & the seniors are screaming. Can't blame them. Everyone likes to be well rehearsed & feel like they have a handle on what they are performing! Which means, of course! that we are back on the mainland tonight [squeezing around Star's dance schedule, which is also rehearsing for a performance & which Star is reluctant to miss because, unlike singing, she is under confident & has trouble remembering her moves]. And Friday. I need to wash her performance blacks. I need to do a lot of things. Every time the cats hear the car keys they both go into meltdown! *sigh*

Yes, we are schooling. Sort of. Yes, I cook the occasional meal. The washing up gets done when I get around to it. The floors need sweeping. The sheets need changing. The cats need cuddling...BUT: first things first; the show must go on! No matter what.

And you know what I was thinking, because I let Star drive into town, not Brisbane, just locally, for the first time yesterday, a little stressed because living where we do we don't have things like street lights, round~a~bouts, traffic, street lanes, & Star will have these blond moments!; all these changes to driving licences mean I am going to be running round like a pork chop for some time yet! Yep. It's a good thing I really enjoy rehearsals. It's worth it when Star, quirky to the last nuance, hugs me & says, "You're such a good mummy!" Hmm. The child sure knows which side her bread is buttered on!

2011-11-01T16:36:00.000-07:00

Growing food was the first activity that gave us enough prosperity to stay in one place, form complex social groups, tell our stories, and build our cities. ~ Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Is there anything better than a garden? The mixed sort with the food bits all muddled in with the flowers & the trees, the birds & the bees. See how our garden grows!

And it is producing! Strawberries.

Corn heading up.

Cucumbers!

Every morning as Dino heads out the door for his boat he turns the sprinklers on. And every morning as I return from dropping him to his boat I turn them off again. The garden smells richly damp. Lush. Alive. The skinks scuttle through the mulch. The bees are busy pollinating so that we might have the fruit of their labours. The greedy bird swoop & chitter amongst the tree tops.

Gardeners ~ gardeners, not horticulturalists~ are a funny lot. They can't walk down the garden path without stooping to remove weeds, tie back a stray tendril, tuck mulch more firmly around a ripening strawberry. I counted a half dozen strawberries yesterday. Wandering hands have plucked them all.

Even the cats like a good garden. They loll on the sun baked bricks going into ecstasies over the heady wafts of scent from the curry plant.

I expect there will be a garden in heaven ~ large & rambling ~ where we can walk & converse with God in the cool of the evening. Oh yeah!

2011-10-30T21:52:00.000-07:00

Ô la mortelle injure! La cadence est moins lente!

Et la chute plus sûre! Nous rabattrons bien leur caquets!

Nous serons bientôt leurs laquais!

Qu'ils sont laids! Chers minois! ~ from Pavane

From this:

To This:

Saturday we are doing the Sinfonia ~ which has the advantage of being local! Bonus, Star is singing with her cousin, Rosemarie Arthars, & Dimitri Kopanikis, one of Star's singing teachers, so it will be quite a family affair! Marie, a mezzo~soprano, is soloing. Sooo looking forward to that! Mum is coming down. Gran is coming. Dearest is coming. Dino hopes to come & island friends are also going to make the effort. Star gets well supported when it is cheap & local!

It should be a great concert! V.M is doing Faure's requiem & the Pavane from the ballet as well as Madame Butterfly's Humming Chorus, Massenet's Meditation from Thais & Sibileus' Findlandia. *sigh* So much great music! My cup overfloweth!

A Night at the Ballet.

2011-10-29T14:27:00.000-07:00

Star was worried because I was spending my birthday in town, in the Green Room, doing much of nothing but I actually had a really, really nice day.

Firstly, on the way in, we detoured. Star likes to take cookies or something else backstage to allieviate the boredom ~ & the terrible hunger pains half the kids seem to suffer. Certainly no cookies ever come out again no matter how large the packet! Then Star announced she was buying me shoes for my birthday. My mother can tell tales about buying me shoes, most of which ended with both of us in tears & near hysteria & no shoes in sight so I rather looked askance at this one.

Given the odd shape of my feet I scanned the rows & rows of shoes quickly. Whatever I chose had to be flat ~ no heels for me ~ & really soft. Voila! A sandle~y pair met the critea. It took all of 5 minutes. My mother will never believe this though I was certainly wearing the shoes when she saw me. Star also added a large butterfly scarf in blue shades before I could convince her to leave the shop.

Then into town. We were hours early so we could meet ma's train & be taken out to lunch before the matinee performance. I have decided meals in town are dodgy as. Firstly ma & I chose things that were apparently off the breakfast menu & no longer available so we had to scramble to make a second choice. Star & I went with the antipasto plate. It arrived with some poor small slivered fish centre stage!!!! I hurridly hid that somewhere I couldn't see it. Disgusting. Everything else was lovely, though far too much of it. The olives where the size of small honeyeater eggs.

Just as we were finishing up Dan Crestani wandered past. Star, already mad & giddy, promptly waved like a lunatic with the big cheesy grin she usually saves for coppers. Dan hesitated, did a double take, looked from Star to me & back again then wandered over looking puzzled.

Do I know you?

No, Star said cheerfully. I'm with the choir.

Ah! Light broke. Dan said he'd been hoping to meet everyone involved in the production so actually chatted with my lunatic child for 5 minutes. So lovely of him as I'm sure he didn't need to be bothered right then & was probably on his way to warm up. My mother said he didn't look big enough to play Merlin but I told her I'd thought he was very good though I'd only seen him in rehersals still with script to hand & on the monitors ~ but then my idea of Merlin is probably a little different to most people's & has far less to do with the Arthurian story than what druids actually did. I hope it made ma's day as she's just had a cornea graft & her eye was still a little sore.

We walked Star round to the stage door & I collected my pass before walking ma round to the Playhouse. I saw her in then returned to the Green Room for my nap! Just as well as there is a lot of waiting time with these things & by the time the matinee was over we really just had time to see ma onto her train home & 3 hours to fill. I took Star down to Max Brenner's for a snack.

After our huge lunch neither of us was particularly hungry but I knew it was Star's last chance for anything so we did the fondue ~ which was at least healthy in parts. We got there before the crowds too & wandered along Southbank before I abandoned Star at the stage door & went to wait for our friend, who was terrific about arriving right on time.

And finally, I actually got to see this production! I loved the set design, which was simple but hugely effective. Modern technology is a wonderful thing as they just used lighting & projection for most of it. Supurb! The dancing was very physical ~ which I was aware of, but much more sensual than it seemed on the monitors & certainly not PG rated. A good thing that Star never actaully saw this! lol Dan, as Merlin was brilliant. He did a wonderful job of conveying the magic, the mystery, the naunces of mythos. Rachel Walsh danced Gueinevere; Keian Langdon danced Arthur & Hao Bin danced Lancelot. Of course, having seen this in rehearsal & on the monitors I knew lots of it & already had my favourite bits I eagerly anticipated: Star in her monk's robe ~ because she was so far over on the extended stage the monitos don't actually cover that area & so, though I'd heard her, I hadn't ever seen her; the entrapment of Merlin by Morgaine; The joust ~ which was quirky & fun & excellently done!; the Pavane ~ which is just an exquisite piece of music & so lovely!

Ma left me my present ~ all 3 seasons of the brilliant BBC comedy To The Manor Born starring Penelope Keith. If you've never seen this you don't know what a treasure you're missing! Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

A Night at the Theatre.

2011-10-28T13:34:00.000-07:00

It's so dreamy, oh fantasy free me.

So you can't see me, no, not at all.In another dimension ...~ Rocky Horror Picture Show.

We all remember Riff Raff. Unforgettable. Just one of those characters but not someone you want your 16 year old daughter emulating. Well I don't. So my eyebrows rather went up when a delighted Star arrived home & announced she had landed this starring role in her drama group's up & coming production. OK, I have a sneaking enjoyment for the Rocky Horror Show but it hardly seemed the sort of production suitable for the under 18 crowd to put on.

"Oh Mum! It's nothing like the original! " You can say that again!

Last night this rather short & bizarre show had its one night stand. Dino & I dutifully toddled down to the community hall for our Friday night entertainment, dropped our $2 donation in the bowl, found ourselves seats up the back & prepared to be generous & encouraging.

The drama group has been rather a thorn in my side since its inception, mostly because so few of the kids take it seriously enough to actually learn their lines in time for any production & several things have been scuttled because they just couldn't do it. It is disheartening when, like Star, you have been word perfect for weeks & able to focus on actually acting rather than just delivering your lines. Granted Shakespeare is difficult ~ but hardly impossible & I tend to think if Star, who is very ADD, can manage to learn all her lines & deliver them with aplomb, so can everyone else.

Anyway, the last production, which was to have been a heavily edited Dream was scuttled. I felt for Star who had wrestled manfully with the Shakespearean English until she could deliver her lines intelligibly. This year the drama was a combined dance/drama thing & they spent several workshops coming up with a plot & dialogue. The younger ones are about grade 4/5; the older ones upper high school age but even so very few of the kids are able to successfully brain storm that sort of thing. [About here we sing the praises of a homeschool education because Star is the exception!]

The finished product bore little resemblance to the Rocky Horror Show ~ which is indisputably a good thing! The younger girls gave a most wonderful rendition of the 3 weird sisters' speach from Macbeth. Star proclaimed one of the balcony speeches from Romeo & Juliette. She is a ham & dressed as Riff Raff, brought the house down. And we got a version of The Time Warp. There is something to be said for being performance hardened. Star knows how it should be done so even though this was her first year of dance all her movements were clear & well defined. Besides, she loves an audience! She was having an absolute ball ~ & it makes such a big difference.

The island is a very small duck puddle so it is very easy to make a huge splash & Star got plenty of accolades for her performance. She lapped it all up; why not; it was lots of fun, but tonight we are back to the real thing: 3/4 boredom for a hap'ny's worth of notoriety & the choir doesn't even get recognized. I am taking Star's dance/drama teacher with me to tonight's performance as Qld Ballet gave us complimentary tickets. I was absolutely delighted ~ especially seeing it is my birthday & Star has been feeling terribly guilty about me spending my big day holed up in the Green Room! Ma is taking herself to the matinee & we will have lunch together so it should be a pretty good day all round.

It's just a jump to the left.

And then a step to the right.

Put your hands on your hips.

You bring your knees in tight....

2011-10-26T15:58:00.000-07:00

The greengages had a pale blue bloom, especially in the shade, but in the sun the flesh showed amber through the clear green skin; if it were cracked the juice was doubly warm & sweet ~ The Greengage Summer.

It's been a while since we had a homeschool post ~ but then it's been a while since our homeschooling has been settled & organised. Just the same I did sort out our book study for this term ~ one of my very favourites that I thought Star was now old enough for & might actually enjoy ~ & though she won't say I think she is rather.

So we are reading Rumor Godden's The Greengage Summer. The Americans, typically, renamed it nonsensically Loss of Innocence, but this is much more than the coming of age story it is tweeted as. Godden is brilliant at capturing the inbetween world of the child teetering on the brink of adulthood .

I think one of the things I love most about Godden is her subtlety, & she can be very subtle. The Grey children are selfish & in an effort to alleviate this undesirable state of affairs their mother packs them up holus~bolus & heads for the battlefields of France that they might see for themselves what others had sacrified on their behalf. The Grey children come from a grey, drab & uninteristing England into the wonders & light of a French summer on the Marne. Their mother is taken ill on the journey & the children are left to their own devices at their hotel, Les Olliets. Olliets translates as carnations ~ the flower of adult love. They are suddenly thrust into an adult world they never knew existed, full of nuances, betrayals, hypocrisies wherein the budding beauty of the eldest daughter, Joss, triggers a series of tragic events for which their unthinking selfishness is responsible & from which they can never return.

The other thing I like about Godden is her strong visuals & sense of place.

It looked a garden from one of our French grammar books, hideous & formal, but beyond it a low box hedge bounded a wilderness of grass & shrubs & trees, bamboos, a monkey puzzle smothered in creepers, & tangles of roses. Overgrown paths wound among them where white statues glimmered; some of the statues were broken, their arms & legs hacked off; one was lying on its side. Beyond the wilderness was what seemed to be an orchard, & in its high wall was a blue door. As I looked at the door a barge hooted down the river.

The garden was light, but it was a young light without sun, clear & stained green by the shrubs & trees...

It brings back, very clearly, memories of France: the light, the smells, the quick French it is so hard to follow, the gauzy light [one understands better the French impressionists], the food! A French patisserie is something to behold! And like all the best writers Godden is inadvertently educational because the Marne is also Champagne country & the children learn about how champagne is made.

We will look at the country & history of the Marne for history, which will tie things nicely together given we are unlikely to actually finish Star's school work by the end of term, let alone by the return of work date. More rehearsals & performances are looming & it will be that way all term so will will do what we can when we can & if we have to continue into the hols ~ well, that's the price we pay.

Animal Antics.

2011-10-24T14:21:00.000-07:00

Purring is an automatic safety valve device for dealing with happiness overflow. ~ Anonymous

We have had a kookaburra hanging round. He shows so little fear of us ~ or the cats for that matter ~ that it is obvious he has been hand fed by one of the neighbours. He is so brazen we had an incident last week that has left us gob smacked.

I have been away a lot at night with Star & Dearest has been cooking even on the nights I am here because I have been granny napping in the afternoons, catching up on the erratic sleep I get when Star is in performance mode. What Dearest likes to cook is one pan roasts, finishing of the spuds in hot oil just before he serves up.

Our weather has been a little warmer than usual so the other night Dearest opened the kitchen window that doesn't have a screen as well as the ones that are screened. To his astonishment the kookaburra flew in the window, nicked a broiling hot spud straight out of the oil & took off out the window again! Ouch! I bet he had a burnt mouth!

Then there are the cats. Marlow is a prize idiot but Kirby is really, really smart ~ smart & neurotic. Ever since he arrived he has loved being outside. Indeed, although he was really spooked, he couldn't wait to get outside & explore. He spends a lot of time outside & the joy of his life is when his people join him outside.

Unfortunately this is tick country & every day I go over both cats really carefully. I, however, have been getting home after midnight & the other night when Kirby came in he decided he couldn't wait till I arrived home & made a fuss of Dearest until Dearest noticed the tick crawling up his fur. He then perched at Dearest's eye level & turned his head to show Dearest the tick that had attached itself above his eyebrow & waited without moving for Dearest to remove it. Then he watched with fascinated interest as Dearest set the ticks alight. They make a satisfying *pop* as they explode & I swear that cat takes great satisfaction in knowing they have come to a nasty end!

When I finally arrived home Kirby crawled into my lap & snuggled in with a huge sigh. No, my boys don't appreciate me being gone from home so much but they are much better than they used to be & know I will eventually arrive back & there will be a special treat in their food bowl. It sweetens the absence just a little!

A Double Portion.

2011-10-23T15:23:00.000-07:00

“You have asked a hard thing. Nevertheless, if you see me when I am taken from you, it shall be so for you; but if not, it shall not be so.” ~ 2Kings:2One of my very favourist stories can be found in 2nd Kings. You probably know it. It is one of the most dramatic in the Old Testament.

The time has come for the prophet Elijah to depart the world. This was commonly known amongst the prophetic people. Anyway, in those days prophets trained to be prophets under a practising prophet by becoming their servant & Elijah's servant was Elisha.

Elijah knows God is coming for him so twice he suggests Elisha leave him but this Elisha refuses to do. He is Elijah's servant. More, he is Elijah's designated heir to the prophetic mantle. He is sticking with him to the end.

Finally Elijah turns to Elisha & says: “Ask! What may I do for you, before I am taken away from you?” And do you know what Elisha asks for?! A double portion!!!! I don't know why this has always struck me with amazament but it has. Elisha's not content to just accept the leftover scraps. He's bold. He says, in effect, I'll have what you have ~ & then some!

I was sharing recently, because it struck me that Elisha was onto something & so I have been praying for a double portion. The person I was sharing with looked at me dumbfounded then said in tones of utmost horror, Don't you think that's a little greedy?

I'd never thought of it like that so I thought about it & here's what I concluded. My heavenly father is rich. I could ask for a hunderedfold of His spirit & it would still not even begin to drain His resources. We are commanded to love the Lord our God with all our strength & all our might & all our soul ~ something not humanly possible. The only way to actually obey that command is if His Spirit enables us so logically the more of His spirit we have the better able we are to love Him in the way He desires to be loved. Thirdly, we're not shy about asking for worldly things. You know people will tell me all the time that they are saving for this, that or the other or that they are upgrading to a newer model whether it's a house a car or a t.v set. Don't you find that just a little odd?

Here's God filling His word with promises we can claim & we fix our eyes firmly on the things of this world. Why shouldn't we be greedy for the things of God? Why shouldn't we desire to have as much as He is willing to gift us with? ~ & He's prepared to gift us very lavishly indeed if we just ask.

The things of this world will pass away. They are already going. They rust; they mold; they plain wear out. The things of the spirit do not perish. Why do we not eagerly desire that which we can actually take with us into the Kingdom?

In the Last Days the people of God are going to face terrible persecution. If I'm around when that happens I want to be like Elisha, who finding himself heir to the mantle of Elijah, struck the water with Elijah's cloak & demanded: “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?”

He did expect to be answered. ~ & he was; decisively. Yep, I want a double portion!