trying...

... to write a song on faith.

it's ruff being a dog

Power, recognition, status, comfort.

I mustn't seek out these things or live for them.

Says Keller.

There's a challenge.

school camp

Had a lovely day. A pleasant 75 minute drive with Tim Keller to keep me company. Good times with 100 excited kids. Food I didn't have to prepare or clean up.

At 6 o'clock tonight I was thinking how lovely it all was and how sorry I was to be going home.

By 7 o'clock something had changed. I was hanging out to leave and couldn't get out the door fast enough. Feeling for the other teachers who still have 2 days to go.

It took me two hours to get home. I got lost. Headed off in the wrong direction. The mountainous dirt roads should have given it away. They didn't. Eventually, the sign 'Kenilworth' did. I shouldn't be allowed to drive after dark.

Andrew's birthday

10,000 dead?

Prayers for Japan.

duck song

I'm going to year 5 camp for the day tomorrow.

I'm looking forward to it. I have to run a session - I get 16 kids at a time. I'm going to teach them to play and sing this song. Then I'm going to leave. The teachers then can listen to it over and over again for the next two days.

Good times.

Those who can stay calm when all around them is in chaos...

 ...probably don’t have a clue about the seriousness of the situation.

If man were within stabbing distance of God, he’d stab him a thousand times.

"we criticise others in order to justify ourselves"

Rob Smith.

Thoughts?

tomorrow afternoon

Rob Smith is coming to speak at our church. His topic is forgiveness.

I'm really looking forward to it.

If you live in Brisbane, you should come. We kick off at 3pm.

today...

I'm going on a long walk with Andrew.

Then maybe a coffee shop.

Then I'm rehearsing my little kids (year 1-3) choir. We're performing next week.

How about you?

fingernails

Joel takes enormous pride in his long fingernails. He wants them to be like Granny's. Unfortunately, he also likes to play in the dirt. Not a good combination.

Last night I insisted that they be cut. I told him to go get the nail clippers. He said, "That's like making Jesus carry his own cross."

Micah's singing kookaburra

sick bay art comp

The school sick bay has just been refurbished. The P&C are running an art competition to brighten it up. The winners will have their work framed and hung on a sick bay wall for all to see forever and ever amen.

The brief was to draw something that makes you happy. Psycho robotic ponies make Joel happy, but he thought that they may not make everyone happy. So he drew a bird instead. This is a big step forward. Two years ago he'd have submitted the pony and wondered why he didn't win.

thoughts on judgement from Matthew's gospel

1. Coming judgement was a big part of Jesus' teaching.
2. 'This generation' is repeatedly mentioned and we are told judgement is coming on them.
3. The judgement Jesus talks about involves sorting people out into two groups, rewarding one group and punishing the other group.
4. If life for the righteous is eternal, then so is punishment for the wicked. (Matt 25:46)
5. God seems to be punishing people because he is angry with them.
6. God's judgement is well deserved. The people Jesus was speaking to/about had done bad things.
7. Fire is often used as an image of what judgement is like. Not so much, I think, to purify the evil as to dispose of it.
8. Judgement can be escaped.

love wins

Love the title.

If there was a heresy I was going to fall into it - then this is it.

But I don't think Rob Bell would cause me to.

bright vs gifted

I'm off to a meeting to talk about supporting gifted and talented students at school. Not just bright kids. Gifted kids. There's a difference:

Bright Child            Gifted Child
  
Knows the answers.      Asks the questions.

Interested.             Extremely curious.

Pays attention.         Gets involved physically 
                        and mentally.

Works hard.             Plays around, still gets
                        good test scores.

Answers questions.      Questions the answers. 
      
Enjoys same-age         Prefers adults or older 
peers.                  children.

Good at memorization.   Good at guessing.

Learns easily.          Bored. Already knew the 
                        answers.

Listens well.           Shows strong feelings 
                        and opinions.

Self-satisfied.         Highly critical of self 
                        (perfectionistic).

Bright kids are easy to teach. You teach them something, they practice it, they get it, they do it. Gifted kid are heaps trickier. They will have opinions on what you are teaching. They may already be able to do it (which is good), be bored with it, not want to do it, have their own way of doing it, or disagree with the whole premise on which you are operating and refuse to do it. And giftedness is often bundled in with disability, which complicates everything considerably (and makes it more wonderful).

I'm going to this meeting to try to support kids whose giftedness is in the arts areas. It's likely their teachers have no idea that these kids are gifted. Many will be right brain dominant visual-spacial learners.  These kids may be messy, big picture types - they'll be annoying to teach because their brains work in a non-sequential way. They could be atrociously bad at basic things like spelling and memory work, organisationally impaired and unconscious of time. But they have fantastic thinking skills and imaginations. 

Anyway, I'm off to this meeting. Have you notice that we only ever talk of giftedness in children? That's because with grown ups potential doesn't matter. What you have done is what we care about.

pony

severed head

back to regular programming

God rewards those who wait for him

And he likes puppies.

be inspired!

isn't he beautiful?

5 things a good-girl blogger would blog about

1. God's goodness
2. Flowers
3. Ponies
4. God's goodness in making flowers
5. God's goodness in making ponies

5 things a good-girl blogger would not post on her blog

1. poems with bad words in them
2. posts that criticise ideas
3. posts that express doubts about stuff
4. posts about meetings that go on for too long
5. posts about being a good-girl blogger.

maybe I should read this book

turned over a new leaf.

For the common good it seems I need to learn how to be a good-girl blogger.

Be more careful about everything I write.

So I will. For the rest of the morning at least.

Speaking of leaves, here's one up close.

Isn't it great? Fearfully and wonderfully made. Like me.

Angel series 4

Watched.

Poor ole Angel. He's destined to always be miserable.

3 bad jobs this afternoon

- write a sunday school lesson (a very tricky one)
- set up direct debit for my phone
- call insurance company.

I don't want to do any of them. Especially the last two, but I have to or I'll have no phone and will be summoned to court. My heart is beating way too fast. I can do this.

hymn revival

What hymns would you like to hear spruced up with a new tune?

sad

When I drove to the gym this morning I needed to turn on my headlights. The sun is rising later again.

Another year has slipped away.

I've been going to the gym on Monday mornings for 5 years now.

Life is racing forward. Too fast.

hell

I'm not into it.

It's not that I don't believe in it. I'm just not into talking about it heaps. I don't really have anything to say. Not sure what it will be like. Can't imagine it or get my head round the eternalness of it.

I listened to a sermon tonight. It was on abortion. The point seemed to be that we should discourage people from having abortions because we care about their souls and they'll go to hell if they have an abortion (unless they repent afterwards). I'd never thought of arguing it that way. If they weren't xns weren't they going to hell anyway? Might as well abort...

Other sermons I've heard from this guy have been great. An American thing?

so I got this new phone.

It came with a 2GB modem and was going to be the answer to my lack of blogging.

I thought I could use it at work. Shoot up a post in a dull minute. At lunch time or during a staff meeting.

Trouble is, I chose a bad carrier. All the press is correct. The $49 per month that I pay gets me no network connection.

I'm giving them one more week then it's the TIB.

angel series 4

They're just making it up as they go along.

I need a collective noun for ukeleles

Any ideas?

Working again.

Might as well be full time. I've taught M, W, Th, Fr this week and last and on Tuesdays I've been in doing RE.

The coffee shop is calling for me but again I say no.

Year 3 supply today.

The Heavens Sing

A song of ours is available free download on the emu music facebook page.

Left hand column, down a bit.

don't you wish you had a fun job like mine?

Thanks for your choir suggestions. I now have heaps of ideas.

I've just written an arrangement of When The War Is Over. I'm going to try a slow a reflective style. 2 part. 3 part sometime. Vocal soloey bit at the end over the top of the 3 part Aint Nobodies. Ooh ooh - that makes 4 parts! And the kids are only 10! (But these harmonies are easy.) Saxophone solo in the middle?

Fun times. Unfortunately there is a 'walk to school' breakfast on tomorrow morning so it'll be a shorter rehearsal than usual. Priorities guys!

Cold Chisel - "When the War is Over"