These are the days of Miracle & Wonder!

Lord's Prayer Paraphrase

Had a go at this yesterday - doesn't seem quite right yet but am still quite pleased:

Our holy and heavenly Father
Come and rule, in us and around us,
So that Your desires for the world come to life.
And keep us alive, with food and with forgiveness,
Helping us to pass on those gifts.
Protect us from temptation,
Support us when we walk in darkness,
And lead us to Yourself;
Forever glorious, majestic and strong.
Always.
And that's the truth.

The First Armistice Day

The first stroke of eleven produced a magical effect.

The tram cars glided into stillness, motors ceased to cough and fume, and stopped dead, and the mighty-limbed dray horses hunched back upon their loads and stopped also, seeming to do it of their own volition.

Someone took off his hat, and with a nervous hesitancy the rest of the men bowed their heads also. Here and there an old soldier could be detected slipping unconsciously into the posture of 'attention'. An elderly woman, not far away, wiped her eyes, and the man beside her looked white and stern.

Everyone stood very still ... The hush deepened. It had spread over the whole city and become so pronounced as to impress one with a sense of audibility. It was a silence which was almost pain ...

And the spirit of memory brooded over it all.

As reported in the Manchester Guardian, 12th November 1919.

We Are The Dead

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

   

Henry Allingham [RAF] & Harry Patch [Army]

Our last servicemen from the Great War, died within a week of one another.

-

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

My Friend

This is my friend Phil.  Had I moved to Gaza in 2006 (as was the plan when I left NZ), he would have been my boss.  On Friday he was arrested by Egyptian police after a protest near the Rafah crossing into Gaza Strip.  He's not been charged and has not been able to see a lawyer or his family or anything - this apparently happens fairly regularly in Egypt, when people are critical of the government.

His blog is www.tabulagaza.blogspot.com, if you are interested.

Things will almost certainly be okay in the end, since he is half-German and the German embassy and Amnesty International are on the case, but in the meantime I'd appreciate your prayers for his wellbeing, especially for physical protection and emotional stability.  He's an awesome guy.

 

UPDATE - Wednesday 11th

Phil was released last night and is home with his family, apparently alright but needing time to deal with the whole thing, as you might guess.

Thank you for playing your part in that.

--

FURTHER UPDATE - Saturday 14th

Phil has just posted a message on  http://www.freephiliprizk.org/ if you're interested.

shopping

 

I am rubbish at shopping (except for groceries - I'm great at that).  Christmas is the only time I do it.  Maybe, this Christmas someone will buy me a TV and then I'll become good at it.  Oh Lord NO!

I'm very happy without a telly: I read books & play Take2, then watch old TV online.  Oh the irony.

Nkosi Sikalel iZimbabwe

If there was ever a day to pray (and hope) for a country, it could be Zimbabwe today. Within the next 24hours, we might have finally seen the end of Robert Mugabe as president. There's very little doubt that he has lost the election, it's now a matter of whether he'll let the election beat him.

And in the meantime, I found this story - a reminder of the quarter of Zimbabweans who have had to leave the country and are banned from voting in these elections as a result:

-

Expat Zimbabweans run own election

Zimbabweans cast votes across the world over the weekend as their country went to the polls -- even though their ballots did not count. Mandla-akhe Dube, the general secretary of the Save Zimbabwe Campaign in New Zealand, said it was part of a global protest against their disenfranchisement.

"We wanted to highlight the fact that up to 4 million of us living outside Zimbabwe are disenfranchised," he said. The Government has not made a provision for us to vote by postal means. The only way we can highlight our plight is by conducting a mock presidential election."

Mock polls were held in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, as well as in the United Kingdom, South Africa, the United States, Australia and Belgium. At the New Zealand polls the result was conclusive.

"We voted in Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change with 74 per cent, followed by Simba Makoni with 23.65% ... Robert Mugabe got 0% of the vote."

[from www.stuff.co.nz]

Location, Location ...

Does anyone know good things that a person like MisterDavid might do in Edinburgh?

Or where he might live?

Or a job?

Or which hills are best to climb?

oooooOOOOOOoooooooo ... THEOLOGY!!!!!!!!

Neo orthodox 89% Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 86% Emergent/Postmodern 71% Roman Catholic 64% Charismatic/Pentecostal 43% Classical Liberal 43% Fundamentalist 39% Reformed Evangelical 32% Modern Liberal 14% What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Neo orthodox. You are neo-orthodox. You reject the human-centredness and scepticism of liberal theology, but neither do you go to the other extreme and make the Bible the central issue for faith. You believe that Christ is God's most important revelation to humanity, and the Trinity is hugely important in your theology. The Bible is also important because it points us to the revelation of Christ. You are influenced by Karl Barth and P T Forsyth.

on the erosion of my britishness

over the weekend, on two seperate occasions, I found myself greeting friends by saying (and I quote) 'sup man?

I would appreciate your prayers as I attempt to navigate this slippery slope ...

of Assisi

okay, so this is something we used to sing in primary school, but I've started getting back into it in the last few weeks ...

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

  ...

written by this guy, about 800 years ago.

[nice belt]

I'm the King of the Swingers

Hello my dears.  I'm typing this (with slightly frustrating lack of velocity) with my right hand only, since my left is now out of action.  Let me tell you why:

It was a classic sunny afternoon, so we were hanging out under the trees and so forth.  I've not climbed a tree for years, but I was quite up for it.  You can see where this is going, yeah?  The inevitability of freewill ...

Yes, so I got up there, & then fancied coming down, utilising the 'monkey method':  hang on a branch and drop.  But, sadly for my poor shoulder, the branch decided to let go before I did so, leaving me to accelarate sharply and land on my back (quite hard).  Thereafter I got to do all the things that you get to do: neck/body brace; ambulance; laughing gas (quite good, but not funny); long long LONG hospital wait; painkillers; and the rest.  Mostly it was quite boring really, so I'm extra glad that my sister was able to come with me.

So, I have a fracture of the 'ball' bit on the end of my humorous (not funny), and a bit of a general shoulder dislocation too - I go back on friday for them to mess around with it.  I would be very up for God healing it (cos it hurts), so if you could please pray for me I'd appreciate that - the healing process will probably take several weeks otherwise.  I wont write more, thanks for reading.

With lots of love ...

  x David x

ps. if you do pray, please remember that when I had my face smashed in (back in 2002) I had a proper miracle come out of everyone who prayed for me.  It can & does work.

Amarillo

If you're in Britain, you'll have heard the Tony Christie/Peter Kay song '(Is This The Way To) Amarillo' - if you haven't, you've SO missed out - but on the news I just saw a version of the video made by the Royal Dragoon Guards whilst on base in Iraq.  I've got to tell you, if you get the chance, PLEASE see this: we'll be telling our grandchildren!

[because having grandchildren qualifies you to talk interesting rubbish]

There's a small clip here, but it just doesn't touch the whole glory of the piece - do your best to see the whole thing, please.

The reason for my particular joy at this work of ART is not just that it's well done, or timely, or anything like that, but more that to me this is an absolutely perfect example of British humour: what it is, why it is, and how many levels it works on!

Now, everyone knows you can't dissect comedy, but I don't care ...

THE RECIPE:
(i) the Tony Christie song
- it reached #18 in the charts in 1971 (therefore almost completely unknown)
- the singer's from Sheffield (ditto)
- the lyrics are simply awesome [rhyming 'amarillo' with 'weeping like a willow' etc.] (slightly surreal)
(ii) the Peter Kay re-release
- made for Comic Relief (therefore 'cool, I suppose')
- cameos from many 'so-crap-they're-great!' stars (therefore 'cool?  Maybe - I'm trying to work it out ...')
- #1 for 7 weeks (therefore 'not cool at all - 14 year olds buy it!')
- Peter Flipping Kay!! (on a whole different level of coolness)
(iii) the squaddies' video
- a perfectly orchestrated tribute (intidicative of sheer professionalism)
- in the tense political environment of the recent Iraq war, whereby we're constantly scared to bits that our soldiers are going to do something terrible or un-PC or culturally flipping stupid (indicative of sheer unprofessionalism)
- Iraqi soldiers miming a song about going to Texas (so I'll let you work that one out yourselves)
- emailed around so successfully that the MoD's system crashed (so flipping dangerous it's just not funny!)

So, to summarise:  a spoof of a spoof of a song too cheesy to require spoofing, irresponsibly but professionally set against an uncertain (and very serious) political backdrop, and sabotaging the technological capabilites of the Ministry of Defence.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is comedy.

[But does it make you LAUGH?]

Flipping OUCH!!

Hi there.

Was just out walking and got hit by a guy who came up to talk to me - can you pray for me please?  That kind of thing's never happened to me before, so it gave me quite a shock/scare, and it flipping hurts too (my left cheekbone - nothing serious, but very ouch).

I'm in town until Monday, and there's no way I want to feel scared of going outside the house or anything like that, so please pray for me (Ps. 142:7) and for those boys too - the one that hit me had those eyes that look like he's got a passenger on board, so please pray for him.

Thank you so much.  Apart from the ouch, I'm doing fine.

24-7 monkeys

Hi hi hi ...

Lord knows what's going to happen (I'm hoping that we'll have most of our 'meetings' in the pool), but this weekend is our first-of-it's-kind gathering for 24-7prayer people from around the North Island.  If you see this in time, I'd love it if you could pray for us, and blow on us ...

from the ashes a fire is awoken
a light from the shadows shall spring
renewed shall be blade that was broken
the crownless again shall be king

Oh yes, all of that - I want to be a Knight!

The Other Side

Thank you so much for praying, if you did.  Man, I was so scared of going through immigration and having someone looking me in the eye and go, "You've already been here more than a year!  How can you be a visitor?!"  before deporting me.

But in the end, immigration took 30 seconds - a lovely Asian lady just got slightly confused that I wasn't a newcomer, but took my passport and stamped it, and now I'm safe ...

And that's all you need to know for now.  I'm jetlagged.  Bye!

Pack up, let's fly away ...

Leaving to fly back to New Zealand tomorrow.  MMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm ...

Am looking forward to it for sure, but feeling all 'funny' and nervous too; about the journey I think, but it's kind of hard to tell.  I'd really appreciate it if you could pray for me, if you read this in time (I arrive in Auckland on Friday morning), that all manner of things shall be well.  Thank you!

See you on the other side ...