You are free
April 29, 2008
http://flickr.com/photos/pshab/422895344/sizes/o/
Prayer Vigil for Peace - ANZAC Day
April 22, 2008
| April 25, 2008 | ||
| 4:00 pm | to | 8:00 pm |
The idea of running a prayer vigil was raised at the Upper Room during our Palm Sunday Peace night.
I have asked Age to get the word out to the crowd (so the sms alert went out and now it is up here)
It will be at 4pm on Anzac Day, at the corner of Swanston St and Flinders St, opposite Flinder St station (outside the cathedral).
The plan is to have a banner with a peaceful message, candles to hold, and a small table with information leaflets.
We are making preparations on the banner and leaflets to hand out. I am is keen to focus on the suffering of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, but am open to other suggestions.
If anyone wants to help with preparing the leaflets and/or the banner, please contact me. If you’re coming on the day - we should be there from 4pm until about 8pm (or maybe later - just call if you plan to get there after 8).
Peace be with you,
Lorien
Honour Amos, Jeremiah, Jesus and Jameson – use FAIRTRADE products
April 17, 2008
Rev Jameson Mabviko is a member of the Kasinthula Cane Growers (KCG) in
JustAct - close the gap
April 17, 2008
| April 22, 2008 |
This month we are taking action to close the gap in indigenous and non indigenous Australians’ life expectancy. Health issues are affecting Indigenous Australians all across the country, even here in
I’m not at forge and i am calling this post the emergent-anarchist to get your attention……
April 14, 2008
Today I have dark fantasies about making a voodoo doll of the emergent church and giving it to the impoverished street kiddies of the world to play with. After emptying it’s pockets and stealing its I-pod, perhaps it would stop taking photos of them.
This morning I am angry.
Angry at myself for sitting safely in the blameless position of not yet owning an I-pod but for being part of the coffee groups and art installations and talk-fests that articulate very nicely our uncomfortably with other peoples problems.
So much so that our uncomfortably becomes our problem and the solving of it our mission.
Did I mention that I am working on a book to describe this conundrum?….Or that I spent a shitload of rice money (because our resources are never really ours) on paints and canvas in order to express what I, in my burdensome wealth, have witnessed
That when people ask me ‘how was India?’ I say “really hard’ and then we talk a little while about how shit it is to be rich.
What I want to talk about is, how shit is to be poor. How boring to sit in the dark near the rice pot with dust (like that greasy dust that collects on old jars in the pantry) on your skin because the water is too cold to bathe in. To go for days in clothes you don’t have the energy to wash. To pass round burdens of dead and dying friends and neighbours unpayable debts, like a baby to be nursed through the night. How watered down curry continues to taste like watered down curry, even when it’s shared, and sex and heroin feel less dangerous and more like something that God is giving you to bear the sheer mundaneness of the moment.
If I didn’t think you’d judge me, I’d tell you how I succumbed.
Today, I am angry that Janet is sleeping with men to pay the rent and I have nine hundred and sixteen dollars and thirty six cents in the bank. (not including the little savings a account thing that I set up to fund my next trip back to India to ‘encourage’ Janet).
I am disappointed that in all the talking, this conversation always seems impossible. And so I sit here on a borrowed computer, with toast in my belly and a day of social engagements in a comfortably lit apartment lined up and construct a virtual voodoo doll of me.
My felt arms outstretched and vulnerable, and everything I have ever read about ‘the emergent church’ and ‘making radical discipleship sustainable’ stuffed like cotton wool and nonsense in my head. Handing myself over to the poor, and broken and users of heroin and sex and saying “play with me in the dust until my stuffing falls out”.
Samuel hill 5 - info night
April 14, 2008
| April 17, 2008 | ||
| 7:30 pm |
Hey Age, just wondering if you could chuck some of this stuff up on the More Praxis blog…our trial is April 24th, so just over a week away and we’re trying to get the word out to as many people as possible for solidarity and general awareness…flyers attached are for the info night and just some information about us, Talisman Sabre, and the Fed Square action…for more info, http://samuelhill5.blogspot.com.
In June 2007, five Christian peace activists (Sarah Williams, Simon Reeves, Carole Powell, Krystal Spencer and Simon Moyle) were arrested while resisting Australia/US war games in Shoalwater Bay Military Training Area in central Queensland. They accessed the base, shutting down the games, and invited the soldiers to play peace games (frisbee) instead of war games. They were arrested and charged with trespassing (without lawful excuse). One pleaded guilty, and the others who are contesting the charges (arguing for a lawful excuse) face court on April 24.
Register for Call2Discipleship08
April 11, 2008
The Online rego for call2discipleship will disappear tonight. Tuesday 8th
(This will help with organising and feeding)
So if you still haven’t registered and want to register during Tuesday 8th you will need to phone in. 9340 8815)
(You’ll be prompted to pony up the cash on the next page or by email!)
Holy Hardware?
April 10, 2008
Considering a few of us may be stirring the pot on this issue this weekend here is some info….
“The products had to be finished by the 25th [of April] and all of the workers in our department had been working until three o’clock in the morning. We had been working non-stop for just about 16.5 hours. We were making crucifixes…. At 8 am, the morning of the 26th, it seemed as if our heads had just hit the pillows before out coworkers began to call for us to get up and get back to work again. The manager arranged for me to load the boxes for shipment. I, along with everybody else, was busy moving things into the truck. In total, we had close to 300 boxes of crucifixes and other things as well. Everything was so heavy; each box was about 20kg! We were so tired. My shoulders, legs and waist went weak. While we were moving the boxes of crucifixes, one of my coworkers suddenly cried out: “Jesus, take pity on me! I’m going to die of exhaustion.””
In late November the US National Labor Committee (NLC) released a report, Today Workers Bear the Cross, exposing the Association for Christian Retail (ACR) for selling crosses manufactured in a Chinese sweatshop.
The ACR supplies nearly all of the US’s Christian specialty stores with a wide range of items including Bibles, Christian books, curriculum, apparel, music, videos, gifts and greeting cards. The ACR did US$4.63 billion in business in 2006, which is more than Levi Strauss had with US$4.1 billion in sales. Continue reading at justact.org.au
Anzac Day - Remembering the Peacemakers
April 7, 2008
| April 25, 2008 |
Kia ora.
This website provides information on people from Aotearoa / New Zealand who have made significant contributions to and suffered in the process of promoting peace.
From this site you can download a booklet that can be used in groups to reflect on the lives and actions of these peacemakers on ANZAC Day.
RAC - Open the Gate
April 2, 2008
| April 22, 2008 | ||
| 6:30 pm |
Refugee Action Collective - Victoria presents
PUBLIC MEETING: OPEN THE GATE IN 2008!
Moving beyond refugee detention.
When: 6.30pm, Tuesday 22 April
Where: RMIT Kaleide Theatre, 360 Swanston Street, Melbourne.
Hear what’s changed and what hasn’t in refugee policy under the new Rudd
government. And, how we can go forward from here.
Speakers include:
ANNA SAMSON - National Policy Director, Refugee Council of Australia.
Anna has seen first hand Australia’s new $500 million detention centre
on Christmas Island.
DAVID MANNE - Coordinator, Refugee and Immigration Legal Centre. David
has represented refugees on Nauru and at other detention centres.
Help us spread the word:
- Download a flyer at www.rac-vic.org
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