A Long Way from Revolt?

Bubble Dog

 

Age

Advent - Awaken from sleep

There is perhaps nothing we modern people need more than to be genuinely shaken up.  Where life is firm we need to sense its firmness; and where it is unstable and uncertain and has no basis, no foundation, we need to know this too and endure it. We need to recognize that we have stood on this earth in false pathos, in false security, in spiritual insanity.

For this is the message of Advent: faced with him who is the Last, the world will begin to shake. Only when we do not cling to false securities will our eyes be able to see this Last One and get to the bottom of things. Only then will we be able to guard our life from the frights and terrors into which God the Lord has let the world sink to teach us, so that we may awaken from sleep, as Paul
says, and see that it is time to repent, time to change things.

Mary’s (Seditious) Song

And Mary said:
   "My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
 for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.
   From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me—holy is his name.
 His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation.
 He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
      he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
 He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble.
 He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.
 He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever, even as he said to our fathers."

Luke 1:46-55

I wonder if our Christmas celebrations and prayers like Mary’s hold any seditious intent?

Age 

Cafe Praxis @ Forest Edge Festival

Hi guys I have an opportunity for us to hang out drinking coffee and chatting about changing the world in a Music/Arts festival cafe. 

Details 

Which festival: Forestedge festival 

When: March 10-13

Cost: $50? (we may pay less as contributors) + your camping expenses

Café Praxis - the concept
A workshop/cafe venue that addresses and responds to issues of discipleship from the perspective of justice, theology and art. Creating a safe place for the ‘fringe’ of the festival to relax and be challenged to live an interconnected spirituality. The venue will do it’s best to be an example of fair trade and environmental care. Sponsored by UCA

Current thinking on program (draft)

Bible Studies - ‘Called to be Agents of Change’ & ‘Subversion & Discipleship’

Workshops – Make Poverty History / Micah – Incarnational Mission to the poor – Eco Theology - A God of Justice - Indigenous Faith – Theological Reflections

Prayer & Art in the Sacred Space

Music nightly - acoustic/indigenous/world  

Open House - a time each night when key speakers and groups gather to have coffee and informal discussions with festival goers.  

The opportunity: Unlike NSW we in Vic don’t have a ‘Blackstump‘ Festival where fun, music, arts and challenging teaching takes place.  Forest edge seems to be the closest thing to be involved with and it needs our help be born in this way.  I can see this festival being a regular space in vic where radical discipleship ideas and thinkers can be heard and engaged in conversation.  A space where groups,  youth and young adult groups can camp at the festival and have their worldviews challenged and grown.      

What I need:

• volunteers to work in the cafe.
• people to attend (youthgroups,young adults, action groups, house church etc..  to organise themeslves to come and have fun)
• people to join a team who are keen to plan and shape where we go from here.

Can you see what I’m cooking? RU keen to play?

Age

adrian.greenwood@kew.vic.uca.org.au

 

 

Chrissybubble

 

Merry Christmas!

May the peace of Christ disturb you.

Age 

Be a friend, not afraid! (Peace March & Festival - Sun 18)

 The scenes and events of last weekend in Sydney certainly aroused a raft of public emotions. Citizens of Victoria are being invited to participate in a response that is designed to make a very different public statement.

The following email just came in inviting ‘us’ to take part, as individuals, in an event scheduled for this Sunday:
 

Best wishes
David

(Posting by Age)

neutrality and injustice

Tracing Shadows

 

‘It began this spring without explanation: fire hydrants, street signs and bicycles all over Park Slope and Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn were suddenly standing watch over their own distorted chalk outlines, as if anticipating some violent demise. Whoever did this left no clue other than an ambiguous signature: "© Ellis G. 2007," scrawled next to the chalk etchings.

During daylight, the outlines did not make much sense. Shopkeepers and bar owners had little information. Deliverymen muttered to themselves as they moved their outlined bicycles indoors. Parents were just as confused as their young children.

But under the orange glow of the streetlights, the intent became clear: the outlines are shadows, burned into the sidewalk…..

"This work won’t be around," Mr. Gallagher said. "God knows, it could be gone tomorrow."

 His chalk outlines, inspired by his own brush with crime, are "exhilarating for me," he said. "I can do it at any time of the day and I don’t have to look over my shoulder. I can do it right in front of the police."…….

"I think that public art is important," said Mr. DeCastro, …

On a recent evening, a man named Steve stopped to watch Mr. Gallagher work, despite the cold. "A million times I walked by a street sign, how come I never thought to do something like that with a piece of chalk?" Steve asks. Mr. Gallagher smiles when he hears this, watching a new fan walk off down the street.

"It’s very touching," he says sincerely. "People tell me ‘you make me smile’ or ‘you make me stop and think,’ and that’s cool. I make a difference in people’s lives. It inspires me to create more."

Then he’s on his feet again, clapping the dust off his hands. He grabs his bag of chalk, and a bright smile flashes across his face when he sees a bicycle is casting a hard shadow on a wide stretch of sidewalk nearby.

"Oh, that’s a good one," he says to no one in particular.’

full NYTimes article by Conrad Mulcahy

Rus 

Race Violence

Here are a few links and quotes from articles about the race violence in Sydney.

Personally I am not surprised that racism could motivate violence in Australian - Racism or radical patriots/nationalist was a huge card for one nation and is played in our politics continually. You only need one friend of dark appearance trying to fly interstate to see racial profiling in action.  This violence is a shame on us as humans.  I pray that we find ways ‘to love our neighbour as our self’.

 The Age National News

Sharon Verghis - Middle Australia

"If you’re a white local, it’s your beach. If you’re not, you go to nearby Brighton le Sands. Geographically, the two beaches are neighbours. Racially and culturally, they may as well be on different planets.

Sutherland Shire has an unusually homogenous cultural mix. With its 215,000 people — the second-biggest local council in NSW and the fourth-biggest in Australia — it has one of the lowest proportions of residents with a non-English-speaking background in the country: 9 per cent. White faces dominate, as do conservative values. Prime Minister John Howard has called it "a part of Sydney which has always represented to me what middle Australia is all about".

Ewin Hanna & Richard Baker - Nationalists boast

The Patriotic Youth League, whose members handed out "Aussies Fighting Back" pamphlets at Cronulla, said it had been inundated with callers wanting to riot in Melbourne.

"If it wasn’t for the massive police presence there already, and the fact that it’s mainly confined to a peninsula, we really could have had a Paris situation on our hands (in Cronulla)," league spokesman Luke Connors said.

"I have had people calling me all through yesterday, and today, and all through the night, just asking me when Melbourne is going to erupt in riots because they want to go and join in." Founded in 2002 by former One Nation activist Stuart McBeth, the league requires members to be "radical nationalists" and strongly opposed to "non-discriminatory immigration".

 

Markus Zusak - Shame Rises

" I can’t get the image of Australian flags moist with alcohol and urine out of my mind, not to mention the slurred words of Advance Australia Fair. I don’t understand, and yet I’m not surprised.

There are people I grew up with who would gladly tell me, "Well, you could never be 12 years old and catch your first wave like that now — not with all those f—— Lebs around. They’d snap your board, mate." I could answer that I have as much chance of observing hostility out on the water while surrounded by young white men as I have of being attacked on the beach by these so-called men of Middle Eastern appearance.

…. This was not a small minority spoiling it for everyone. The mob symbolised every racist comment I heard when I was growing up in one of Australia’s whitest areas. It was mortifying to hear comments such as, "If you come down here, you have to respect our beach and our way of life."

A piss-soaked flag and a drunken cry of "Aussie Aussie Aussie, oi, oi, oi" doesn’t seem like much of a way of life to preserve. It reduces Cronulla to that cliche of a spoilt childhood — like the owner of the ball, if they could run away with the beach and take it home, they probably would."

 

 

Age

 

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