fatvegan

I love Green Wing so much. It has become like one of my friends. It's pretty much the best TV show ever. So much joy to be had.

Sadly, normal salt gives me no joy at all. I miss cave salt.

The toilet is so nice and clean. It's such a pleasure to use. I should have cleaned it months ago.

The sun has finally come out. It's amazing what a difference it makes.

I need to talk less.

I blogged about people saying "just" all the time when they pray. I thought it was strange, and a bit funny. I didn't think anyone else noticed it, and felt kind of cynical. But Lauren noticed it too and she's a proper Christian, so she's allowed to talk about that sort of thing.

According to the Oxford Latin to English dictionary, the word fides means all these things.

• allegiance
• reliance
• guarantee
• loyalty
• fidelity
• faithfulness
• engagement
• dependence
• promise
• truth
• trust
• honour
• conscientiousness
• authenticity
• faith
• warrant

Which I reckon makes it a pretty good word to use for non-religious civil unions. I'm not sure how you'd create all the extra adjectives and verbs from it. Maybe Rach can do that part. Everything I think of sounds silly.

fidet, fiderite, fidate.

Needs some work.

I reckon we need a new word for marriage. Let the church keep it, and just invent a new one that means "publically aknowledged, legally recognised commitment to a consenting adult partner for life". They good just update their laws with the new word. And since most of the authors and journalists are liberals anyway they might start using the new word. The church would be happy, because "marriage" is still unblemished by the horrors of equality. And gay folk could participate in an institution that over time would come to mean far more than church-endorsed but socially-sidelined marriage. Everyone's a winner!

I don't understand that passage it all. Why would God think it's disgraceful for a women to speak in church? It doesn't make any sense.

I reckon the uniqueness stuff is a copout. People can't suggest that women are unable to lead worship, because women manage it all the time in other churches. So it's not about the "natural abilities" of each sex (whatever that means). If women just weren't very good at preaching, then it would say "women aren't very good at preaching" instead of saying it's disgraceful for them to do it.

But apparently it's disgraceful for women to talk in church. People opposed to women preachers should admit that they're really opposed because the bible says it's wrong. The "uniqueness" thing is just something they say to make it more palatable, but I don't reckon the bible supports it.

It reminds me of a the bit in the Quran where Mohammed says that women shouldn't ever be seen by anyone but their husbands. They found out that he put that in just after he'd seen some other guy's wife nude, and got worried that other men would see his wives.

Maybe Paul was preaching at church, and his wife embarassed him by asking him a really tricky Old Testament question. So he went home and wrote in the bible "[if women] want to inquire about something, they should ask their husbands at home, and not in front of the whole church so Paul gets embarrassed in front of everyone". Then he told his wife to go read her bible, because he'd found a passage that backed up his point. Later he took out the references to himself, just to help out other preachers with smart-alec wives.

Oh dear. That was cynical. One tick for the book.

This is me. I don't think I'm going to get my name into that book of life. Not sure I want it there anyway. Guess it's an eternity in the lake of fire for me. I'll bet that lake is far worse than it sounds.

There are a couple of guys at Central sometimes. They give out leaflets, and one of them shouts loudly about God. I'm so impressed. I doubt they are any more sure of themselves than any other Christians. But they live out what they believe. I don't agree with them. After chatting with Helen the other day, I'm even less sure than I was that I should call myself a Christian. But I'm inspired by people who put belief into practice in a non-violent sort of way, even though it makes them look like cranks.

I guess you can say that they'll alienate non-Christians by being so forward. But you can take that to extremes.

Who was ever inspired by quiet patience and grace? If you are to be patient and gracious, you must shout it to the heavens; so that others my be the moreso inspired and uplifted.

I finally threw out my shoes last week. The soles had almost completely fallen off and flapped around every time I lifted my foot. It wasn't very becoming. They made an unpleasant noise every time they flapped, which made me feel ashamed. And so they were thrown in the bin out the front of my accounting lecture. Thrown out will apple cores and fast food packaging. It felt a little undignified, for shoes they I'd inherited from my father and I had owned for five or six years.

I was actually just trying to think of a title for Soul Survivor, and got distracted.

Top stuff all you Soul Survivor folk. You put on a good gig.

Responsible nuclear proliferation is a little bit like a good marriage - responsible proliferation is like not getting marriage in Las Vegas to someone you've just met. When the stakes get high enough for everyone involved, it takes a lot for people to start rocking the boat. In a healthy marriage the stakes for both partners are high enough that both are sure to be devastated if either one does something particularly irresponsible. Sometimes this happens anyway, but there is a disturbingly appealing stasis to both stand offs.

Isn't it weird that the theme of last night's talk by Matt Gelding was on mercy and sacrifice? Which is almost exactly what I was talking about just yesterday afternoon. It was a great talk. He was kind of rude to a few people, but I liked a lot what he said.

If you don't have love, then don't do it. Well do, but the important thing is to love them. Matt Gelding

I was thinking about the Hillsong and CCC style of worship. And I thought about how what they're doing isn't that different to what Mary/"the woman" did to Jesus with the oil before he was crucified. Hillsong and CCC glorify God and Jesus in the most expensive and glorious way they know how. No expense is spared in the worship of God. It looks gratuitious to lots of people, but how can you call it gratuitous if you believe what is says in the Bible (which I definitely don't by the way). How is CCC spending $20 million to buy a TV licence, much different to Mary buying a year's wage worth of oil to use up in one go. In one sense it's grotesque, but in another it's spontaneous and extravagant (in a good way).

I don't think spending huge amounts of money on glorifying God is bad. But I don't think that spending some of that money on helping the poor and doing all that stuff that David said would be bad either. And you can all probably guess what I would do if it was up to me.

Why buy the cow when you get the milk for free?

Because cows are the best. They're friendly and affectionate. And there are much better things in life than milk, even if it is free.

Why wouldn't you buy the cow?

I love St Johns. They have such funny prayers.

We pray for the world and your generous love and grace for peace. We pray for Isreal and Palestinian Territories where Israeli forces assassinated Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin; We pray for tolerance and justice where Hamas has vowed to kill Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in retaliation. Maybe the Israeli government cease their assassinations, And the Palestinians cease their suicide bombing. We pray for Afghanistan where fighting between rival warlords killed 100, including the country's aviation minister. May the production of so much heroine in Afghanistan by the warlords cease, And ways of peace, unity and development be found. We pray for developing nations where a UN survey shows that the average IQ in most developing is being drastically reduced byt dietary shortages of trace minerals and vitamins. And where and estimated 18 million children are born each year who are mentally impaired and that's not counting the 200,000 born each year with sever birth defects because their mothers didn't get enough folic acid. Thank you, God, for giving us hearts to care.

We pray for justice around the world: In the European Union where they voted to impose a massive find against Microsoft for its anti-trust activity in the way it sold Windows software. In Taiwan where President Chen Shui-bian narrowly won re-election, just days after he the opposition party accused him of staging the assassination attempt on his life to win votes and where the president himself called for an immediate recount to defuse the political crisis. Keep our actions open we pray, that we may be challenged when we do wrong, and not held guilty when we are innocent.

We thank you God that in India and Pakistan this past week, We saw sport bringing hopes for peace as cricket matches resumed after 14 years of high political and military tensions. We thank you, Lord, for all the cheers shouted by both sides, for the easing of international tensions, and the sheer pleasure of sports shared together. We pray for local governments around NSW, That compassion, community and justice make take precedence, Over short term gains and selfish ambitions. We pray these prayers in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Shyly I place some sort of Being, entirely nonreligious let me assure you, above me in the firmament. I let Him laugh at my endeavors and grant myself, only at these weakened moments the grace of Someone Else's recognition of my very doubtful existence.

Harry Chapin, singer, songwriter