An interesting climate change article from Germany

Global warming appears to have stalled. Climatologists are puzzled as to why average global temperatures have stopped rising over the last 10 years. Some attribute the trend to a lack of sunspots, while others explain it through ocean currents.

At least the weather in Copenhagen is likely to be cooperating. The Danish Meteorological Institute predicts that temperatures in December, when the city will host the United Nations Climate Change Conference, will be one degree above the long-term average.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,662092,00.html

Blogging Problem

I apologise to any readers of this blog who have been concerned about the far-too-often changes to the appearance of this blog. I'm having a problem that I am trying to rectify.

I recant, I do believe in human induced global warming

But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.


But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.  (2 Peter 3:8-10)

Old people don't really care about the environment as much as young people

This came up in my Bible study group this week as we were talking about intergenerational differences.

Here are my first five replies? What do you think?  Could you add some others?

1. They actually do care more for the environment than younger people. They turn off lights, use the dryer less, buy less disposable products and on the whole live more simply.


2. Many of them lived through the seventies, when the lastest fear campaign was global cooling.  With perspective, they are a bit "over" the hype.


3. Most of them know that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant.  Plants love the stuff.


4. Through experience, for good and for ill, most them know that they are not in a position to change the world.  There are larger forces at work: perhaps the patterns of the sun is one such example.  They also remember hotter days in the past.


5. They are less impressed by "edgy videos of hockey graphs" and are somewhat cynical of anything new.  Some are also reactionary.  The more the young are "into it" in unthoughtful ways, the more some older people buck against it.

BTW.  I think we should care for the environment.  I have just become cooler on human induced global warming over the last two years.  And no, its not just my shift from Annandale to the Sutherland Shire.

I think that we need to use our brains judiciously, separated from politics and business.  The best "religious" word that I have heard comes from someone with whom I don't often find myself in agreement.  Also, BTW, he is also an old man.

We need to care for the environment: it has been entrusted to men and women to be protected and cultivated with responsible freedom, with the good of all as a constant guiding criterion. Human beings, obviously, are of supreme worth vis-à-vis creation as a whole. Respecting the environment does not mean considering material or animal nature more important than man.

Humanity today is rightly concerned about the ecological balance of tomorrow. It is important for assessments in this regard to be carried out prudently, in dialogue with experts and people of wisdom, uninhibited by ideological pressure to draw hasty conclusions, and above all with the aim of reaching agreement on a model of sustainable development capable of ensuring the well-being of all while respecting environmental balances.

Pope Benedict XVI, 1 January 2008

"King" sings "The Bethlehemian Rhapsody"

h/t Gordon Cheng

Writing your own prayers

A friend and I read through Psalm 55 last week.  I wondered whether we should learn not just the content (of the rich theology) but also the method (of turning our thoughts to God and writing them down).  We decided to each write out a prayer to God, like the Puritans used to do.  Here is mine.  It only took a couple of minutes.  Let me say that I am no poet and I did not write it to be shared, but I found expanding my thoughts really useful.  A particularly large financial decision looms behind this prayer.

Father, have mercy on me.
The fog overwhelms me
The burdens outweigh me
The sin infests me
But you are my light
And in you there is no darkness at all
Father, have mercy on me.



The lions are within me
The devil is against me
The accusations are inside me
But you are my comforter
And in Christ there is lasting peace
Father, have mercy on me.


Am I about to do something foolish?
Am I about to do something worldly?
Am I about to do something that will count against me?
Or am I doing what is right?
Am I being wise?
Am I providing for my own?
Guard my heart and my head
Father, have mercy on me.


Give me a love for your saints
Give me a love for the lost
And give me a love for you.


Fix my eyes on the one who calls me
Turn my ears to the one who teaches me
Use my hands for the one who died for me
And use my life for the one who gave me his.


Anything wrong
Anything I hold back
Anything hidden and secret that repulses you
Anything that turns my heart from you.


Painfully remove from me
Father, have mercy on me.

Self Image - part three (I really like this one, taken with kind permission from my wife's private blog)

I realised that my plan revolved around good things - marriage, children... but not around the best thing - God.

Although there was lots of 'Christian' stuff in my plans, and what I desired were wonderful gifts from God - I had tried to understand my identity through what I was doing, not who I was.

I came to realise that I needed to see myself as God's child. That is who I am. I am His, I am forgiven, I am made in His image, I am redeemed...

I needed to realise that I couldn't make permanent a phase of life, just because I had never thought beyond that phase. My plans as an 8 yr old were totally flawed, because life continues, and I had never thought about it past a certain point...

I have since then come to understand that if I start with the mindset that I am primarily God's child, then everything else in my life falls into perspective, and into place.

So, yes, I am a mother. That's great... but I wont be a mother of young children forever - that is just the wonderful role God has given me at this time in my life - and because of my relationship with God - I want to do my best at living that phase for Him - teaching, loving, rumbling, feeding, caring for etc those precious little ones He has so blessed me with. But this is a stage.

I am a wife - yes. And I so dearly love my husband - but if I only see my identity as a wife, then if anything ever happened to him, I would no longer know who I was. I am first a child of God, and for this time, and hopefully the rest of my life (I want to die before AB), I will get to enjoy being a wife to AB - this is a God given gift - and because it's God given - I want to be the best wife for AB that I can be, for God - as well as for AB!

I have school aged kids - yes. And as God's child, I need to enjoy my school aged kids, and all that these older children need me for - part of which is starting to let them do much more than they did as younger children at home - I need to see this as a phase of my life too - with thanksgiving, because it is a God given phase for which I am thankful.

And when the kids leave home, or when I grow old, or whatever future I have - the dependable truth is that I am God's child. I will try and live with whatever phases of life God gives me, and be thankful for it.

I don't know if that makes sense to any of the readers of this blog - but it really revolutionized my thinking and self image. I live for God. I live for His plans. I don't worry about 'what next', because God is in control of that. And I live with great thankfulness for each wonderful gift or phase God has given me. Once I get that I am God's child, all the other things just fall into place, in the right perspective.

It's a very freeing realization.

Once that was sorted, I didn't have 'E' to somehow continue that gap of all my young ones being at school, therefore I'll have no role in life - we had 'E' because Buzz and I dearly love babies, and wanted another one. And I have in some ways enjoyed her more because of that difference. I still don't want this phase of my life to finish, and still long for each day with 'E' to go by slowly - but, I am no longer afraid of what's next. What's next is the same as what's now - I am God's child.... the other bits are merely details.

Self Image - part two (I really like this one, taken with kind permission from my wife's private blog)

So, to summarise - things were going according to my eight year old plan...

Then, I turned 31.

I had four boys, Buzz was working as a minister... and I had two children at school...

But I was unhappy with so many things.

Wasn't this always my plan? Weren't things the way I wanted them to be?

My plans hadn't changed all through highschool. This was a plan I held for many many years... in fact - till I was 31! In fact - it was a 23 yr old plan...

But, as my children were going to school, and I was into my thirties, I found myself increasingly dissatisfied with my plan.

And it took me a while - but I realised the problem - my plan had no chapter after having young children at home. It didn't have a 'what next' section. It was a plan that only went up to young children - and as so many of us know - the young children phase is very short. Kids grow, and go to school.

My plan was limited, and I was limited by following this plan. And I felt empty and lost and confused and disappointed.

I didn't know what came next, as I had never thought about it - and I felt old and like I had no identity anymore.

Self Image - part one (I really like this one, taken with kind permission from my wife's private blog)

I went to a morning tea last Friday for school mums.

It was encouraging.

I got into conversation with someone about kids and image and my understanding of life... after I told her what I thought, she told me I should write a book about it! (cute, but I can't even finish the one I started five years ago!).

But I thought I would share what I was talking about on my blog.

When I was 8 years old, I mapped out my plan for life. I remember doing it and being pleased with my plans.

I was going to finish school, go to Sydney Girls Highschool, and then do an Arts degree at UNSW. Whilst studying at university - English, history and music, I would meet a lovely Christian man - who was also doing an Arts degree. We would marry at the end of our degrees. We would both be teachers for a while, then he would go onto Moore College to train to be a minister. We would have six children - three girls and three boys after college, and I would stop working and spend all my days looking after them. The end.

That was my plan. Totally, that was it.

So - reality - I did finish school. I did go to SGHS. I did do an Arts degree in English and history, with a year of music as well. I did go onto do a diploma of education. I did marry a minister.

I met my husband at highschool not uni. He did a science degree not an Arts degree - although he also did a dip ed after his science degree. We married at the end of second year uni, not after we had completed our degrees. We had a handful of boys - well, four.... and then one girl, and it is unlikely we will have any more children. I never taught in a school, but continued as a piano, trumpet and music teacher for preschool age children. We had children during our time at Moore College - in fact, we had a baby three out of the four years we were there!

So, although there were a lot of differences between my plan, and what eventuated, actually there were also a lot of similarities. Things basically went according to my eight year old ideas.

.....next installment coming soon....

The throne of God

I'm working on my talks for our first Saturday Church weekend away. The topic is the Throne of God. I'm mainly speaking on Revelation 4 and 5, but I'll be referring to the theme elsewhere. Can I say again how fantastic Spurgeon's sermons are?  I stumbled on this one on Hebrews 4:12, about approaching the throne of grace. In one small section he says that because we come to a throne, we are to pray with:

• lowly reverence
• devout joyfulness
• complete submission
• enlarged expectations
• unstaggering confidence
• and deepest sincerity

I'm not normally a fan, but ...

From the Country Music Awards, 1989.

The devil wears pride-a

A few years ago I read part of Milton's Paradise Lost with one of my very valued MTS trainees. (I can be a bit random in my "training").

I am intrigued by Milton's take on Psalm 2. For Milton, as far as I could "see", Psalm 2 forms material for the fall of Satan.

Why do the nations conspire
and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth take their stand
and the rulers gather together
against the LORD
and against his Anointed One.
“Let us break their chains,” they say,
“and throw off their fetters.”

“I have installed my King
on Zion, my holy hill.”
I will proclaim the decree of the LORD:
He said to me, “You are my Son;
today I have become your Father.
Psalm 2.1-3,5-6 (NIV)

Most of us take Psalm 2 to have at least two referents:
1. The nations rise up against the anointed one at Zion, King David, and he conquers them. (1000 BC)
2. The nations rise up against the anointed one at Zion, Christ, and he is/and will conquer them all (AD 33 until the judgment of the world)

But Milton adds a third referent. What happens on earth in people has already happened to an extent in the heavenly realms.
3. At the first revelation to them of God the Son, spiritual forces, including angels under the leadership of Satan rebel. They are "happy" to answer to God, but will not submit to his Christ. At the dawn of time, it was envy of Christ that led Satan to fall.

From book 5 of Paradise Lost. (Tip: It is so much easier to understand if you read it out loud and don't get bogged down on the details you don't understand)

Hear all ye Angels, Progenie of Light, [ 600 ]
Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Vertues, Powers,
Hear my Decree, which unrevok't shall stand.
This day I have begot whom I declare
My onely Son, and on this holy Hill
Him have anointed, whom ye now behold [ 605 ]
At my right hand; your Head I him appoint;
And by my Self have sworn to him shall bow
All knees in Heav'n, and shall confess him Lord:
Under his great Vice-gerent Reign abide
United as one individual Soule [ 610 ]
For ever happie: him who disobeyes
Mee disobeyes, breaks union, and that day
Cast out from God and blessed vision, falls
Into utter darkness, deep ingulft, his place
Ordaind without redemption, without end. [ 615 ]
So spake th' Omnipotent, and with his words
All seemd well pleas'd, all seem'd, but were not all.

Satan, so call him now, his former name
Is heard no more in Heav'n; he of the first,
If not the first Arch-Angel, great in Power, [ 660 ]
In favour and præeminence, yet fraught
With envie against the Son of God, that day
Honourd by his great Father, and proclaimd
Messiah King anointed, could not beare
Through pride that sight, & thought himself impaird. [ 665 ]
Deep malice thence conceiving and disdain,
Soon as midnight brought on the duskie houre
Friendliest to sleep and silence, he resolv'd
With all his Legions to dislodge, and leave
Unworshipt, unobey'd the Throne supream [ 670 ]
Contemptuous, and his next subordinate
Awak'ning, thus to him in secret spake.

Satan and all his army leaves and plots for war. What happens next is truly astounding! I encourage you to read on. How could Satan think he could stand against God?

Although the details are missing in the Bible, what Milton offers is a godly imagining of the events - steeped in Biblical allusions. What do you like about Milton's treatment of the fall of Satan? What does the Bible say?

Does it make sense of Psalm 8 as well and Hebrews 2? Satan was envious of a man who would be placed over all the angelic beings?