Virtually Paul

Upgrading to Auditor

Yep… not long now before a number of people at work achieve their four year dream of getting me to wear a tie to work.  In case you missed the post, in amongst all the I-sang-live-on-stage-with-Third-Day hype… I am about to become an auditor.

I’ll be working 3 days per week, while starting part time for a Graduate Certificate in Chartered Accounting Foundations.  I’m looking forward to the challenge.

The best bit is that the firm have bought a new laptop for me to use in my new vocational capacity.  It’s an ASUS manufactured, Intel branded, Intel Core Duo 2 with 1Gb of RAM (for now), 120Gb hard drive and a bunch of bells and whistles on top of that, including a 15.4″ colorshine widescreen and a 256Mb graphics card.  Yeah… I know.  It’s not that cool… but it’s a work laptop.  What do you expect?

The best/worst bit (jury is still out) is that it’s running Windows Vista Ultimate.  I started setting it up today and to be honest all it did was frustrate me because I can’t find anything.  I’ve become very efficient with Windows XP so looking around and searching for stuff is just a hassle even though I’m sure your average home/business user will find it reasonably intuitive and user-friendly.

The interface is very Mac-ish, which is not surprising given that IE7 is very Firefox-ish… yet they’ve still retained a very ‘Windows’ approach to navigation.  One of the things I liked least about using Jas’s Mac was the weird quick-launch-on-steroids vibe it had.  Vista is a better middle ground in my biased opinion.  It’s not making me learn any transformationally different paradigms for navigation, for which I’m somewhat grateful.

Ask me if I hate it some time in April.  I’ll know by then.

P.S. Apparently Geoff invented policies.   Let’s get him.   Or seek his permission to write them.

Getting Ripped Off

Maybe this is just the first time it’s happened to me… but has anyone else had vultures coming and stealing their posts and republishing them?

That’s seriously just low. If you want to talk about something, fine, quote part of what I said with a pingback and talk… but ripping off my whole post on some automated site that doesn’t even claim to be anyone… I’m not happy.

I want the post removed immediately.

Copyright and Links Policy

Seeing as the author left me no other recourse, I’ve contacted the host. We’ll see what happens.

Dreamhost support,

It has recently come to my attention that the following URL, which you are hosting, contains plagiarised content from my weblog.

Offending content:
http://gospel.blogarium.net/2007/02/06/the-australian-public-doesn%e2%80%99t-click-with-jesus/

My corresponding post:
http://virtuallypaul.com/2007/02/06/the-australian-public-doesnt-click-with-jesus/

As you can see, the entire content of the post has been syndicated without consent. The owner of the offending website on:

Name: apache2-linus.mills.dreamhost.com
Address: 208.97.170.4

seems to be borrowing and resyndicating content from various blogs.

Please advise as to what action you will be taking towards this violation of your Terms of Service.

Kind regards,
Webmaster
VirtuallyPaul.com

EDIT - I’ve removed actual links to the vultures as this seems to be encouraging their automated pilfering of my content.

Should Christians be looking for danger?

Before that post title takes the discussion that I’m planning too far out of context, have a read at the first blog post attempt by Paul from my church. He’s a smart guy with a lot of good things to say, so keep your eye on him.

Here’s the paragraph I read over a couple of times:

God does not wish for us to take the easy way out or avoid tough issues and struggles. He wants us to tackle these challenges head on with unflinching loyalty and faith out of love for him. Not only does he want us to take on the challenges that present themselves to us he wants us to seek out the battlefield on which he needs us to fight. He will support us and give us the strength we need to succeed and achieve our life’s mission but this does not mean he will keep us safe.

What I took away from his post, was this question:

To what extent should Christians go looking for a battlefield?

You could play with those words in a number of different ways and end up with very different results, mostly based on how you defined “go looking” and how you defined “battlefield”. In weighing up the alternatives and extremes, I have the following observations to make:

1. It’s really important that we don’t make ourselves the hero.
It’s the same old story that’s been playing itself out in human history since Adam played at centre-half-forward for the Eden footy club - people trying to put themselves in God’s rightful role. If we go looking for the battlefield, we can’t let our own ego, or our own identity get caught up and defined by the task. I have seen this happen to people in ‘professional’ ministry and I’ve done it myself. If we’re on the battlefield, if we’re struggling, or if we’re serving, we have to keep the goal of making disciples in focus. It shouldn’t be about how nice a guy your church’s pastor is. It shouldn’t be about how phenomenal your youth music team can sound if they practise really hard. In Western-world suburban church life, it’s so easy for secular doctrines of excellence and performance to creep in. It’s far easier to make ourselves or our activities the champion in the battle. They’re not. If Jesus isn’t the hero, then whatever you’re doing has nothing to do with him.

2. It’s really important that we measure progress properly.
God wants us to live out our faith. In doing that, there are most definitely, obviously going to be sacrifices that have to be made. Sometimes we might need to do things that are uncomfortable or stretching. The unfortunate reality is that we still live in a world where some churches measure progress in terms of numerical growth. I struggle to define what progress for Christian mission and ministry really is? How can you determine what the measures should be when you don’t fully understand God’s plans? So, with that in mind, it has to come back to obedience. We need to know what God wants us to do. We need to seek Him to find out. And then we can give it a go. The second we start making up our own ideas of what it means to “risk enough”, we start to try to earn our worth. There is no point in trying to earn your way towards God. That’s just a guilt-ridden spiritual desert waiting to happen. In that sense, we don’t ‘make progress. We simply grow in a spirit-based knowledge. (Reminds me of the second half of 1 Cor 13.)

3. It’s important that we aren’t hyped up to the point of being unrealistic.
To see a sense of allegiance to something that’s so important and real to me, is something that I really love to see forming in others. So that’s great. But at the same time part of me feels a sense of loss, or grief, or something, when I see a bunch of people at a loud, concert-style event with a big band, responding to messages that encourage passionate expressions of promises that “I will live for the cause”. I’d like to be able to promise God something like that. Under my own steam though I’m never going to be able to make good on it. If we’re too easily swept up emotionally by the prospect of surrendering to something greater than ourselves, there are risks. We risk forgetting to think critically and logically about the things that we’re choosing to believe. We risk committing to something before we fully understand it. And, when the experience fades, when the great book about fighting battles is gathering dust, when the youth rally is over, when it’s time to come home from the campsite and go back to the daily grind… will the cracks start to appear, or will we stay 100% true to our word?

One day I hope I’ll find the balance, somewhere in the middle of all three.

Words and Theology

Following some good discussion starters from Geoff:

One of the things that we looked at quite a bit in my first semester at Ridley was the worship/church service stuff. With three weekly chapel services to practice/practise in, my eyes were opened to a world of prayer books and meticulous attention to eloquent readings of scripture. My church seems much more haphazard in comparison. We’ve got a decent bunch of bible readers now, who even pre-read the passage before they drop it on the church… but we don’t use prayer books… and sometimes even the pastors say stuff, that, if you took it back to the letter of the biblical-theological law, wouldn’t actually hold water.

I was in one chapel service at college where a fellow student said, in passing, during a closing prayer, “Thanks God for showing up today”. At morning tea following, there were 5 stiff old Anglicans there to remind him that God is actually omnipresent. Now, for an ordination candidate in a theological college, that’s probably not as tactfully horrific as it would be in a church laity context. The point, however, remains… and I think this is the source of Geoff’s underlying ponderings.

Language is one of the key means through which we express and understand theological ideas. The thing about words, is that they are merely a representation of the concept that the communicator is trying to explain. The quality of that representation, is influenced not only by the lingual/literary education of the speaker… but also by the decoding processes of the listener.

So what does that mean for Geoff and the Third Day song? Well seeing as I’ve actually sung live on stage with Third Day, I’ll dig a bit deeper into the song lyrics. I agree that the phrasing of the lyrics over the music leaves the obvious misnomer surrounding what the beautiful thing is. But the words aren’t just “You are beautiful, my sweet, sweet song”… the bridge says this:

You are my strong melody
You are my dancing rhythm
You are my perfect rhyme
And I will sing of You forever

Anyone who has ever tried to write a song will tell you, from the experience that these are all components of a beautiful song. I think that’s where the words of “You Are So Good To Me” are coming from. That’s what I take away from it anyway. It’s an analogy. And it’s a largely emotional/experiential one, rather than a strongly theological one.

Now, to drive my point home, I decided to pick on one of Geoff’s favourite songs, which I actually really like as well. “How Great Thou Art”. It is a really nice song. However, I kind of struggle with it sometimes, particularly singing this verse:

When through the woods, and forest glades I wander,
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees.
When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur
And see the brook, and feel the gentle breeze.

I understand what the song is getting at here. It’s reflecting on God’s creation as a revelation of His greatness and trying to express that. It has a more staccato melody compared to a Third Day song where the chords tend to ring out and flow together. That, for me, really brings out the “ye olde english” feel to the verse as it talks about “forest glades and woods” that “I wander” through. I get what the song is saying… but I’m an Aussie. I don’t wander through forest glades. I walk. I walk through the bush.

I could start a rant about how crap I think songs are when they talk about Jesus and his “fame” just because of it’s sheer literary Hollywood-infused stupidity… yep… I just did start a rant.

Words are awkward. Theology is complicated. That’s about to become my tagline.

You Should Be Using Less Plastic Bags

I have a confession to make. Since sharing a house with Nathan, I have become somewhat of an honorary greenie. I don’t know if anyone else had sat back and thought about this… but how many times do you accept plastic shopping bags from the supermarket when you don’t really need them? I used to do it all the time. Then I wisened up to the fact that it actually really is damaging to the environment. Now, I don’t really have the impact of that in my face every day - not in ways that I can easily notice anyway - so if you don’t really care about your plastic bag consumption, think about it this way…

Using plastic bags is incredibly lazy. It makes you into the worst of the worst as far as consumerism goes. Not only do you not realise how privileged you are to be able to shop in a first world supermarket… but you can’t even organise yourself to bring a bag along to carry your shopping home? Seriously, how hard is it?

The supermarkets will talk all about their ‘reduction campaigns’ where the checkout person will ask you before giving you a bag for less than 3 items. It never happens though. Numerous times I’ve had to be quite insistent with checkout personnel about not wanting a bag. So, seeing as the supermarket empires have their bottom line at stake and don’t want to stifle your affluent convenience, you’re going to have to do it yourself. Here’s how. It’s not that hard.

1. Get Green Bags
When you do your weekly shop, if you don’t have green bags already, buy them. If you’re not sure how many you need, start with two. I’m a single guy. I shop weekly, for one. I have three. If they go to use plastic, stop them and purchase another green bag. They keep them by the register to placate the greenies.
2. You don’t need plastic bags for most of your fruit and vegetables
Once you’ve got your green bags, as long as you keep them clean, they should be fine for transporting most of your large fruit and vegetable items without using those stupid little clear plastic bags that are impossible for males to open. Put your fruit and vegies straight in as you shop.
3. Make sure you’ll have your green bags next time
Take your filled green bags home. When you’ve finished unpacking the shopping, put your green bags straight back in the boot of your car. Two car family? Two sets of green bags. They’re cheap enough.

4. Train yourself to remember the green bags
If you forget your green bags, you need to remind yourself not to do it again. If you just left them in the boot of the car, the helpful staff at the customer service desk will be more than happy to watch your shopping for you while you go and get them. If you’ve left them at home, maybe you need to give up your favourite sweet food item this week so that you remember for next time. Doing something like that, while it’s a bit of short term pain, will quite likely mean that next time you shop, you won’t forget.

The Australian public doesn’t click with Jesus?

Apologies for trying to provoke your interest with the post title but something that I saw online today got me thinking big time.  I don’t know if you picked up the 3rd or 4th tier news story in the last couple of days about some church putting up a “Jesus loves Osama” sign out the front? (Matt Glover has already mentioned it.) Digger has a bit more to say about it as well but his site is in the middle of transferring to a new domain so I can’t link the post.  What you may not know is that on a certain quite prominent Australian website (which may or may not force itself to be the default homepage in the default browser on a popular operating system)… yes, well… a website, which shall remain nameless… ran a poll with the question:

Are churches right to say ‘Jesus loves Osama’?

Out of the 185,000 odd clicks that the poll had received when I last looked, I was unsurprised but at the same time kind of intrigued, to find that about 82% of respondents voted “No.” (If you’re a uni student, that’s a HD… so “No” did pretty well for itself.)

You wouldn’t have thought that something like this would surprise me. But it did. Maybe it’s the church kid in me. See, I’ve grown up in an environment where, even if people did an absolutely pathetic job of practicing what they preach, the essence of the Christian message - the Gospel of grace and forgiveness - was always something that I’ve been hearing about. It actually hadn’t occurred to me that most people actually don’t have the same experience. After 23 years as a church participant, I’m very accustomed to the idea of forgiving the undeserving and the guilty. In fact, if Jesus doesn’t love Osama, then he isn’t who Christians think he is. That’s how deep it goes.

C.S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity says:

Christianity does not want us to reduce by one atom the hatred we feel for cruelty and treachery. We ought to hate them. Not one word of what we have said about them needs to be unsaid. But it does want us to hate them in the same way in which we hate things in ourselves: being sorry that the man should have done such things, and hoping, if it is anyway possible, that somehow, sometime, somewhere he can be cured and made human again.

I’m only just beginning to feel like I understand what it really means to “Love your neighbour as yourself”. I guess I expected more from everyone else. I guess I expected people to see that, as humans, we really stand to benefit far more from hating actions rather than hating other people.

Six weird things about me

As requested by the ever-blogging Rebecca, here are six weird things about me:

1. I don’t like chocolate. Not in any way shape or form.
(FAQ:
Q. Do you like white chocolate?
A. I don’t choc. Full stop.)

2. Whenever I have somewhat of a suntan, for my entire life it has stopped at the point where the sleeves of my wetsuit finish. It looks rather amusing the first time apparently. Personally I’m over it.

3. I reguarly talk to my family’s cat. He is yet to talk back.

4. On my Dad’s side of the family, I am the oldest of seven grandchildren and the only male. On Mum’s side, I’m the oldest of four grandchildren and I finally have a playmate in my almost 10 year old cousin Ash.

5. I have never had a cup of coffee or a Big Mac. That actually sounds weird on it’s own. I’m somewhat normal, I promise. I’ve had a lot of tea in my time and on the odd occasion that I do go to Maccas these days I’m partial to Quarter Pounders. Not together though… ick! (NB. I only drink decaf tea now.)

6. My favourite toasted sandwich filling is ham and steak sauce.

Tags:

Jas

Janelle

Carris