In My Life

By my reckoning, I have read through the Gospel of Mark at least 88 times.  Even so, there are always new things to discover.  At the end of chapter 4, when Jesus has just calmed a terrifying storm with the words, “Peace! Be still!” the disciples in the boat with him are filled with greater fear and asking, “Who then is this, that even the wind and sea obey him?”

Their question is left dangling, but not for long.  As Jesus steps ashore on the other side of the lake, he is met by a raving madman whose naked body is covered with self-inflicted wounds.  He may be out of his mind, but he knows the answer to their query.  He screeches, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?”  It’s not the man who knows this, but the demons that possess him; and they are fearful and beg Jesus, “Do not torment us!”

Proof of all this comes when they beg Jesus not to send them back to hell, but into the pigs grazing on the hillside.  He does as they want, and 2000 pigs rush over the steep bank and into the sea where they drown.  Next, we find the man, once possessed, sitting there, clothed, and in his right mind.

From this short account, we learn three things: who Jesus is, that demons are real, and there is a place of torment called hell.  Here’s what else is noteworthy: When the demons begged Jesus, he did as requested; when, in fear, the local people begged Jesus to leave their land, he left; but when the man begged to go with Jesus, he was refused. “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.”

Re-discovery – Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah

I’d grown tired of this old hymn until it was re-tuned by Jeremy Casella.  Now, not only has it been given a new lease of life, the words have come alive with richer meaning in this revitalized musical setting.  Though the lyrics were written in the 18^th century by a Welshman named Billy Williams, it is still the unofficial anthem, sung whenever the Welsh are watching their team play Rugby.  They sing the old tune; I much prefer the new one which is available at www.igrace.com.

Casella composed the music while he was a student and a member of a university fellowship that encouraged young men and women to write new tunes to old hymns for the following reason.  “Our hope is to help the church recover the tradition of putting old hymns to new music for each generation, and to enrich our worship with a huge view of God and His indelible grace.”

With the example and guidance of their chaplain, Kevin Twit, they have recorded several albums of re-tuned hymns.  Some of the students have gone on to make music their ministry, including Jeremy Casella, Sandra McCracken, and Matthew Smith.  Sheet music and demos are available for free at the website.  Look for live performances on YouTube.

Audiobook – The Lord of the Rings

I’m well into Volume 3: The Return of the King.  It’s better than the movies!  One quibble: the reader, Rob Inglis, has a deep voice – better at bass than baritone or tenor.  It works well for characters like Gandalf and the old kings, but I would much prefer a lighter touch for Aragon, Frodo, and Sam – more like Viggo Mortenson, Elijah Wood, and Sam Astin.  Still, he’s got the hissing right for Gollum.

On Creation from The Things of Earth

C. S. Lewis: We may ignore it, but we can nowhere evade the presence of God.  The world is crowded with Him.  He walks everywhere incognito. 

Joe Rigney: Creation is God’s self-expression… God’s revelation of himself in creation is pervasive and constant.

Isaiah 6:3: The whole earth is full of his glory.

Joe Rigney: As the light of the sun is refracted by water droplets into a rainbow, so creation refracts the glory of God.

A super-easy Dahl recipe

What you’ll need: oil, one cup of rinsed red lentils, curry leaves, three cups of vege stock, a red chilli or chilli flakes, and an ingredient you’ll find at stores that sell Indian food – asafoetida. It looks like this… 

Here’s how to do it: warm some vegetable oil (or ghee), when hot add the curry leaves (about ten). Heat until they start to crisp. Set them aside.  Now add to the pan two teaspoons of asafoetida powder.  Wait until it starts to pop, then add the rinsed lentils.  Fry them a little before adding the stock and chopped chilli.  Cook until the lentils are plump and tender.  That’s enough for two.  Eat with chapatti or roti and a dollop of yoghurt.   

P.S. I like curry leaves so I add a few fresh ones to the mix, a squeeze of lemon, and a little salt.  Sometimes I add chopped spinach near the end of the process. 

Last week I travelled 11 hours by car to Rubyvale for a reunion with my siblings and a couple of in-laws.  Twelve years ago, we were alone together for a week, packing up and sharing our parents’ possessions.  This time we wanted to reminisce, share old family photos, play some card games, cook for each other, and hang out.  It went well, very well – most of the time.  We laughed with and at each other’s quirks and gauged how we are faring.  I found this photo of my brothers and me (third from the left) from long ago when we were still young and, dare I say it, handsome.

They figured it out

An article in The Times that appeared in The Australian on 3 August greatly amused me.  Headline: Sperm swim like playful otters.  Apparently, since the invention of the microscope, it was widely assumed that sperm move by flapping their tails from side to side.  But, now, 3-D microscopy has revealed this: “Human sperm figured out if they roll as they swim, much like playful otters corkscrewing through the water, their one-side stroke would average itself out, and they would swim forwards.”  Attributed to Dr Hermes Gadelha, University of Bristol. Furthermore, from Dr Gabriel Corkidi, University of Mexico, co-author of the study published in Science Advances, “Our discovery shows sperm have… ingeniously solved a mathematical puzzle at a microscopic scale by creating symmetry out of asymmetry.” 

This information had me imagining how one sperm must have worked it out and passed it on to his brothers, who somehow passed it on to sperm in the next ejaculation.  “Hey, guys, this is how you do it, just watch me!”  Such ingenious creatures!  Such creative problem solvers!  Fancy being the first to figure that out – you’d be a hero and win the race!

Quotable quote

The cross of Christ – the incarnate God – is the site of cosmic inversion where all that is not supposed to be is absorbed by the Son, taken to the depths of hell, and vanquished by the resurrection.  Evil isn’t answered; it is overcome.  God doesn’t abstractly solve a ‘problem’; God condescends to inhabit and absorb the mess we’ve made of the world.  James K. A. Smith

From the soundtrack of my life

Do you find that different artists and different songs trigger reminders of time, place, and circumstances?  Play a song from my iPod, and I’ll tell you where I was and what was happening in my life when I first heard it.  I have Mt Coolum albums like Paul Simon’s Graceland, Van Morrison’s Enlightenment, and Midnight Oil’s Diesel and Dust.  Coldplay and Moby are bands from our West End days.  When we lived at Toowong, my wife loved Patty Griffin’s Heavenly Day and MLK, while I was into Wilco – especially the Sky Blue Sky album.   Commuting to and from Boonah it was Fleet Foxes’ Helplessness Blues, Indelible Grace’s Joy Beyond the Sorrow, and Sandra McGrath’s Desire Like Dynamite and In Feast or Fallow.

It’s amazing how music transports us back and, though familiar, often reveals new elements in the background or in the lyrics that we missed the first time around.