Crying in the rain
Technology has changed incredibly in my lifetime. Magnetic tape was invented in 1928. Okay, that’s quite a bit before I began “my lifetime”. But magnetic tape was limited at first to bulky and expensive ‘reel to reel’ recording machines. However in 1962 (two years after I began my apprenticeship as a fitter and turner) Phillips invented the ‘compact cassette’. Show a compact cassette to a teenager today and chances are that he’ll look at you with bemused bewilderment. Compact cassettes…
The unmentionable subject
Last Monday evening the ABC’s Q&A program featured a lengthy discussion on death and dying. Underlying those discussions was that death is one of those “unmentionable subjects” in our society. One is tempted to ask, “Surely among Christians death is not an unmentionable subject?” The very next morning, after watching this program, one of our elderly ladies was talking to me about a certain hymn. She added that she had put that on her list of songs to be sung…
Country Churches
Preaching last Sunday in a couple of country churches (Goondiwindi and Inglewood) brought home to me again some matters that have often troubled me deeply. That is the need for sound Biblical teaching in small congregations in some of the remote places of Australia and the problem of the survival of these small churches. Occasionally over the years I’ve spoken to some of our ‘grey nomads’ when they return from a stint of travel around Australia. Invariably there is a…
Come Lord Jesus, Come Quickly
Usually I can relate to a poem that I read many years ago. I don’t remember the exact words of it but I remember well the thrust of it. It was the way we pray for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. The mother prays: Come Lord Jesus… but then she adds: But please let me first see my daughter grow up. A farmer prays: Come Lord Jesus… but then he adds: But please let me first finish my…
The Executions
One of the issues that replaced the devastating earthquake in Nepal off the front pages of the TV news and daily papers was the execution of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, the ringleaders of the Bali-nine drug smugglers. I am all for being a little patriotic about one’s country and her citizens, but I did find it rather ‘selfish’ to be focusing on two Australians being punished for a crime while ten thousand people have just lost their lives in…
Chicken and Champagne Easter
A Christian friend from another church once stayed over for the Easter period. For Easter Sunday he insisted on providing a chicken and champagne dinner. I, half-jokingly, questioned his extravagance and suggested it was nice enough to have his company without him “lashing out” in this way to make it a memorable occasion. He quickly insisted that this “extravagance” wasn’t to make his visit more memorable but rather that it was in memory of the victory of the Lord Jesus…
Tall Poppies
I don’t get excited very often about Australian politics… nor any other politics for that matter. Winston Churchill once made the now famous remark: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” Like most of us I’m heartily sick of the “coup mentality” that has infected both sides of politics in Australia in recent years. We have lived through a period of Labor politicians stabbing their leaders…
Black and Blue
She turned up at the meeting with a huge bruise on the side of her face. When someone asked she shrugged and said something about turning around in a hurry and colliding with the open kitchen door. Well, it sounded plausible but I knew she was lying. I’d been to her home after her daughter had turned up in my Church Catechism class in tears. On that occasion I had seen the holes in the plaster wall of the dining…
One hour a Week
The joke wears a little thin sometimes so I have to remind myself that people mean well and that they are really just having some fun at my expense. In this case the joke came up in the context of my being retired. The person suggested that it really shouldn’t have been all that different for me to retire because I only worked one day a week anyway. I was waiting for the rest, but it didn’t come so I…
Swearing?
On my walk through the mall on the way back from the supermarket I was shocked. For a moment I wondered whether I had heard right. Perhaps my hearing is getting worse than I thought. But no! The words were repeated. I have to say that I don’t get shocked easily about “foul language”. Some years ago the schoolteacher of the student that I mentor in our Kids’ Hope program felt that she had to explain to me why my…