Weekly Photo Challenge: (Pattern)

Wot another great theme, the great ones being ones open to a range of interpretation… so many pictures, so little space, but had a variety of shots that jumped out at me to use in this post, each bringing their own personal flavour to this Patterned Buffet:

Clockwise from the top left we have:

# the patterm formed by row upon row of white fluffy cloud hovering over the water and nature scene below like a flight of incoming U.F.O’s

# the unique pattern+shadow formed by the upside down bicycles hanging in our community house on Potter Street in Philadelphia

# both the shades and the shapes of the tyres and the paint which in this picture are all scattered around but are being prepared so that they can be places in a creative design around the new park area reclaimed for the children in our area

# the leaves that amass in front of the blurred image of my beautiful bride on our wedding day, almost as if they are an army, ready to command to do her every will

# the various patterns and shapes of different colour that individually resemble chaos but as they are crafted by my friend Karim come together in a beautiful design that he says is me and gives his unique nickname for me of ‘Fisher-man’

And then this last one stands out for me. The pattern formed by the water. Not quite Moses parting the Red Sea but my best attempt at it. The uniformity of the waves creating a stunning image of venturing forth’ness.

 

[For the previous Photo Challenge with the theme of ‘From Above’ click here]

How to Save a Marriage… before you need to. [part ix]

my friend Rob takes the advice on how to create a strong marriage thing in a bit of a different direction with this solid advice:

Lock the escape hatch and throw away the key. With no way out we are left to work through our challenges together and become the purposed display or shadow of Christ and his bride to the world.

On a practical level:

– Give yourselves to the process of holiness more than happiness

– Dreams of a happy marriage not followed up by deliberate choices will not come true.

– Passive husbands will still be held responsible (just ask Adam). Lead.

[Rob Murray – married for 8 years]

to continue to the next part click here…

the double tease

so i recently was on an orange river trip with a bunch of youth okes linked to a southern suburbs church youth group…

two of the guys on the trip wore t-shirts (which i addressed with them both – one directly and one a little more indirectly cos i couldn’t remember who had been wearing it) which distressed me a lot

[1] cartoon picture made up of two blocks – in the first block a guy and a girl figure [similiar to toilet man and woman stick figures] standing next to each other – in the second block dude has shoved his arm out and girl is falling through the bottom of the block – caption reads “PROBLEM SOLVED”

[2] second was a block with a cartoon groom and a bride, similiar stick figure vibe to first pic – bride is holding bouquet and smiling, groom has big sad face – caption reads “GAME OVER”

both of them saddened me in terms of the message they were delivering and in terms of the fact that young guys would choose to wear them [the ‘problem solved’ guy told me that he had been given the t-shirt by a bunch of his girl friends which made me maybe even a little more horrified]

are they funny? yes, i guess so, clever word play, well done

but they are horrible, horrible, horrible, especially the ‘game over’ one

the statistics for divorce are something like 1 in 3 marriages or maybe even closer to 1 in 2 these days – and they are largely the same in so-called christian and non-christian marriages – how much of this is due to the fact that marriage has largely become a joke, or at the very least a joked about thing

when i marry people [two down, one to go next weekend] i marry them with my shoes off, linking back to the moses story and the fact that he was standng on holy ground, because i truly believe that is how God views marriage – it is a holy and special and spiritual and sacred thing – when we return to that point of view, we will have a starting point towards having healthy marriages which – altho not necessarily easy, because marriage is not always easy, it requires work and effort and sacrifice and humility and service and surrender on a continual daily basis – can and do work and will be an effective role model in a world where relationships have largely become a selfish endeavour, reduced to a me-me-me-me enactment, or a joke on a t-shirt…