elementary my dear w

yesterday tbV and now my friend as well, brian watson, dropped in for a visit… from South Africa, brian is in the middle of doing his PHD in Arizona in stuff you would have to hear to not really understand [altho solar power and keeping particles the right distance from each other and a billionth of a meter thin wire all enter into it] and it was great to get to see him.

he is actually spending most of the weekend with a friend of his in NYC so trained his way through to hang with us from yesterday afternoon and then left eeearly this morning…

what was really cool was that in the village house over a snack and then later on the train and then outside Mad Mex bar and then on the train and then during and after the potluck we had a number of significant conversations. at least a week’s worth altho probly closer to a month or a year for a lot of people i know.

real talk. about real things. life changing things. frustration with wanting church to get it a little bit closer to God’s way things. relationship things. community things.

[and actually we did touch on sport and movies and food in there but the point being that we spent so little time together – relatively – and yet the conversation was so rich]

i hesitate to finish with a challenge cos i suspect the kind of people who read this blog are the kind of people for whom rich conversations are the norm – not necessarily every one, but at least sometimes, and preferably often. and so maybe the challenge is more about challenging the people you know who can get through a year or a month or a week’s worth of conversations and only have dealt with the latest or rehashed information about food, sport and movies.

our time with brian left us feeling like we’d grown a bit and hopefully he did as well. we got stuff to think about and hopefully gave some. as a result of some of the talk that happened things will probably change, maybe in small ways, but maybe later in larger ones.

i still want to be able to quote Monty Python and get amped when we thrash the Aussies in the coming cricket test match and defend Michael Schumacher’s comeback [give him a car, Ross!] and do weird and silly voices with Monkman and get amped for coffee and chocolate and mashed potato… but at the same time i want to grapple with the problem of the drug dealers on our doorstep and try to figure out how to do community living better with the people we live with, and discover how Jesus and His teaching translates to the Puerto Rican people who live across the road from us and figure out how to improve the aft6er school homework program and formulate an opinion on Occupy Philly and and and…

let’s practice speaking more life, more meaningfully and more real. ly.

‘raped’ as a fun catch phrase, tweeting tragedy instead of assisting…

what next? leaving the old people outside for the coyotes to finish them off…?

sounds far fetched maybe, but i have just been thoroughly revolted by what i have just read [and i know in this day and age we can get mildly upset and tut tutty and each-to-their-own-device but maybe it’s time for people to stand up and SHOUT WILDLY AGAINST THIS KIND OF FILTH…] and we need to draw a line…

it started with me reading my good buddy Bruce’s rant [totally justified and i agree wholeheartedly with the sentiments expressed] or question [but i know the rant is simmering beneath] about the question of whether there should be a filter on what we tweet, which you can take a look at here:

http://baristabruce.wordpress.com/2010/11/17/who-am-i-allowed-to-chirp-what-am-i-allowed-to-tweet/#comment-302

well actually, to be honest, it began a little earlier with this blog i wrote after my encounter with two horrible t-shirts and then the recent one i wrote about young people using the word “rape” to describe a bad sporting or examination encounter…

but then i went on to yahoo and happened to catch site of the heading of this article where firstly a guy passes out and everyone is too busy tweeting and facebook statusing to go and help him, and later ends with people taking phone pics of a guy as he dies on the street…

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20101117/sc_yblog_thelookout/if-the-science-guy-passes-out-and-nobody-tweets-it-did-it-happen

as a society we are becoming sicker and sicker and what is the worst part is that it is becoming the norm, it is becoming acceptable – we have legalised abortion (baby-killing) and made divorce easier than getting a visa to fly overseas and our government seems to have an anything goes policy when it comes to government officials being involved in corruption/mismanagement of funds and so on…

where does it all end?

i’ll tell you where it ends. with the church!

will the real Christ followers please stand up? because this is where the call to be holy, to be set apart, to be different is at its most vital…

Engage the young guys who are wearing those shirts. Refuse to let someone get away with a statement of how they were “raped by that exam” without being challenged to never again use that word (and sentence) lightly. Leave your flippin phone in your pocket and go and get up on that stage and see if that man is okay. Shout, scream, make a noise – IT IS NOT OKAY – THIS IS NOT ACCEPTIBLE – I WILL NOT STAND FOR THAT.

Cos there HAS to be a line. And we need to speak and act and react in absolute love and compassion and know when and where and how to speak and act. [and the Holy Spirit will guide us in this area, if we pay attention] But we cannot stay silent any longer!

brett i-whinehouse

My name is brett and i’m a whiner.

“Hi Brett!”

And it’s not cool. And i’m really trying to change, and it usually manifests in games [Settlers of Catan largely, occasionally Scrabble or Rage, sometimes hockey…].

And it’s usually justified situationally. For example Settlers last night which is a Risk-type (but much, much better) strategy game, where i started with a vengeance and everyone including myself thort i was going to dominate and then i went (playing with 6 people) 15 turns in which i picked up only twice… and so the dice-throwing cost me the game, no doubt… BUT Emo Kev played a great game and won and, as far as i can make out, the lousy dice-throwing was not his fault at all… and so my pointing out (repeatedly, and possibly keeping a scorecard) how lousy the dice-throwing was, detracted from his win, which is swak. Sorry Emo Kev.

And it really is something i have been trying to work on and even before last nite’s game i said to myself ‘no talking brett just play the game’ but i don’t think i’ve had as unlucky a game dicethrowwise as last nite and so i just got completely sucked in and whined.

Urgh.

[i should add in addition to that, that whining has been a part of my game winning strategy when i do win because it misdirects and makes people hesitant to grab cards from me and rather pick on other people so i am fully aware of that – i have used it to good effect on a number of occasions to sneak wins… but that is not cool.]

We’re playing again Thursday. I’ll try be better.

p.s. ‘whiner’ not to be confused with ‘winner’ cos they are VERY different.