The Good, the Bad, and the Greedy

Let's start with the Bad.

A little while ago, Luke asked for a peak into the secret life of my bookshelf. He particularly asked to know my 'worst purchase'. Well, there are two contenders; I'll tell you about this one:


It's a set text for doctrine this year (and I nearly always like my set texts). I don't like this one. It's not well written. The author doesn't argue his case very well at all. Proof texts galore. Bllerghh!

The Greedy
I recently read Brian Rosner's book, Greed as Idolatry (not to be confused with Beyond Greed) for Ethics. He's commenting on this verse from Colossians:

"Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry"

Keep in mind that Paul (the guy who wrote Colossians) was a Jew. So to call anything idolatry is to thoroughly hate on it. (Think the 10 Commandments). So why greed? Rosner reaches this conclusion:

'[A]t the risk of blunting the affective impact of the metaphor, "greed is idolatry" may be paraphrased as teaching that to have a strong desire to acquire and keep for yourself more and more money and material things is an attack on God's exclusive rights to human life and devotion, trust and confidence, and service and obedience.' Greed as Idolatry, Rosner, 173.

The Good
Quickflix have been sending me movies. Just a slow trickle, that's all I need. Blade Runner, The Crow, I'm Not There, and Amazing Grace have made an appearance in my letter box thus far. I'm hoping that Master of the Flying Guillotine might be next :) Oh come on. You knew kung-fu was coming.

Keep an eye on my sidebar for movie updates.

Comfort

This post is pretty unashamedly about pedestrian stuff. If you want new and whizz-bang... click wildly until you hit a link to somewhere else!

Saturday's are still known in our place as Blueberry Bagel Day. It's a tradition that carves-out a little haven in our week. There's a whole ritual surrounding it, of which many of you, I'm sure, are aware. The end result is coffee with bagels (toasted just so). But the ritual begins when this place opens.


Alimento in Summer Hill is great, except for the fact that they open several hours after our kids wake. Noah and I buy the bagels. He pays the lady at the counter. If he's lucky he gets to hold the bag in the car on the way home. I say 'lucky' because it basically means he picks the blueberries out and gobbles them up.


Charles Darwin would love my garden. I think my Basil has grown so aggressively that it killed my thyme. It overshadowed it, cut off its light, and watched it shrivel. Life in the vegetable kingdom is a herb-eat-herb existence.


My rockmelons.

Who is watching the...

So my cold's gone. Thanks for praying :)

I guess I've got a soft spot for graphic novels. A comic-book-nut friend recently dropped Watchmen into my hands with this advice:

It deserves to be savoured. It took 13 months for the original readers to finish.

Ok, ok, so this is actually Noah's nightlight.

Btw, the mornings feel colder, and they've grown darker.

Rockcamps, Snowmelons, Eveningcolds

The last week or so has seen things get a little busier, I guess. Deadlines at college are edging ever nearer. My first assignment is due in a couple of days (a paper on 1 Cor. 5:1-5). But there are plenty of little things trickling along. Here are a few of those...


My rockmelons are beginning to go beserk. More and more flowers are cropping up. Now there are several little bubba fruit on there (at least I think there are, they're so small!). All three plants are taking-off very satisfyingly.


This little guy sprang up just a few days after my snow pea seeds went in the ground. I'm pretty sure he's a bean, so some of the old beans must have dropped on the ground, and, voila!, I guess we'll have some beans as well as a dozen or so snow peas against the back fence.

Thank God for plants that grow, and ones that grow food, especially, I reckon. Jolly satisfying.


A handful of you Tassie readers might recognise this spot. Think back to the Club 5 Conference, 2000 and 2001 (right years??). It's Merroo, a convention centre just near Kurrajong.


We stayed at Merroo this weekend just gone for our church camp. We really enjoyed hanging out with people from church for those couple of days.

I think the weekend served to refine / hone a conviction of mine: that a church camp is a precious time in the calendar of a church, so it's crucial to use it to set the gospel before people in such a way that they not only are deepened in their understanding and faith, but also that they see more clearly the gospel's radical relevance to the humdrum, the whole of their lives, and the whole world.


Our evenings are also feeling the effects of a year that's begun:

• Kate and I have enjoyed being a bit more organised about our evenings recently, which I think is helping us both get stuff done and enjoy some more time hanging out.
  
• Kate's year is absolutely underway: Moore Women, writing Bible studies (she's leading one this year), looking after me and the kids ;), it's all gotta squeeze in somewhere! Seriously, pray that she can both keep putting so much into it all as well as getting so much out of it!
  

I have managed to pick up a cold in the last week or so. Please pray that I don't end up sharing this plague around. Nobody wants a cold ;)

Thanks for Pimping my Study

So we may have lost our camera. Probably left it at Bicentennial Park. Maybe it's around here somewhere... In the mean time, we'll get by with my phone's spectacular photo-capturing powers!

So here's my fully pimped study!


A few things to note:

• Wall-hangings - A massive picture of Cradle Mountain that sits to my left, always watching (!), courtesy of Akos. A whiteboard, for things that look better scribbled. Pictures of my sisters (and the rest of my fam!).
  
• Good lighting. Good cans. Good ergonomic whizz-bangery.
  
• Reference books at the ready. And pile of cute bookmarks that I want to use (it's kindof a thing for me!)
• Shelves that involved some hammer-drilling to get 'em up there.
  

Ok so there are two things still to do:

• Pot plant - I'm waiting for my little seeds to germinate before I move it in.
• Memory verses for the wall.

Thanks heaps to Luke, Al, Fi, Fi, and Roj for words of wise counsel :)