Tolerance

So, about tolerance - what is with that current buzzword?
Let's have a look:

Let's begin with a dictionary definition from my fave dictionary.com

tol·er·ance   
[tol-er-uhns
–noun
1.a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc., differ from one's own; freedom from bigotry.
2.a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward opinions and practices that differ from one's own.
3.interest in and concern for ideas, opinions, practices, etc., foreign to one's own; a liberal, undogmatic viewpoint.

So generally we can see that tolerance is a broad idea for people to be okay with other people who differ from ourselves in many and varied ways, such as culturally, opinionally, and practically.
This, I understand.

But then I have a thought:
If so many people consider themselves to be 'tolerant' towards others, then why do they have a big problem with another persons point of view which happens to be 'intolerant' towards another person or group.
Why do people get intolerant about intolerance?
Why are you pressing your view of tolerance upon other people? Is that not being intolerant?

I just feel it is a bit of an oxymoron that's all.
Any thoughts on tolerance??

Yoga - it's the talk of the (US) town

So apparently there has been a lot of conversation going on in the US recently about Yoga and Christianity - whether the two can or should be mixed.
Here is a link to the article in the Seattle Times
(As a side note, Mark Driscoll is the senior pastor at Mars Hill Church, which is also where Rob Bell is a pastor. Just saying, because I thought it was interesting, because I think Rob Bell is pretty amazing, and it's interesting that he works under Mark).

And here is a blog post where I heard about this at The Church of No People

Well, what now? What of Yoga?
Can we take it as just a form of exercise without thinking of it's eastern roots? Or do they carry into any form of Yoga - changed or unchanged?

To be honest, I find it interesting that Christians do yoga. This is probably mainly because I wouldn't do it. I would like to think that I could do yoga and focus on God and not be adversely affected in any way, BUT because I would worry about that, it probably wouldn't do me any good at all - because then I couldn't focus on God for worrying that I wasn't focusing on God!

But for anyone who does, who am I to judge? Paul tells us in the Bible that "everything is permissible". But then he also goes on to say
"Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God—even as I try to please everybody in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved." (1 Corinthians 10:23, 32-33).

So if we find that what we are doing is leading our brother or sister in Christ astray, should we still do it?? Well, it's a matter of your conscience and not mine, for I would endeavour to quit to not let my brother or sister fall.

Now, I do not want to sound judgmental in this: I know different people see things differently - I choose not to drink alcohol, but this does not mean that I condemn all Christians who do so - it is a matter of conscience.

So what would you do? Would you consider doing yoga, or does your conscience not allow you to?

hmmmm, life....

I always wondered about those people who start a blog, and then it just slowly the time between the posts get longer and longer.
Well, go figure, I have become one of those people, and I know exactly how it happens:
X. Life goes on, often, in a very un-exciting way.
You get up, you work/study/bum around the house, you eat, and go back to sleep again. This can go on for days, years even, without one taking notice of it. I guess that's why we journal, why we blog, (why we vlog even!), so that our life doesn't go past us without our noticing.
X. We don't appreciate the simplicity that life has sometimes.
Looking at trees, listening to the rain, or just studying something, not because you have to but because you want to. It's the simple things that make life full and whole. Without them, we would be sporadic beings lost in a void of dull.
X. And when life is 'exciting' we decide we have no time at all to write about it!
Why do we always suppose that we are too busy to do anything? One thing comes after another, but isn't that just because we live in time, and that happens to everyone? Even those who actually do seem to find the time to do the things they always wanted to do??

So let us make time to do all of those things.
For me, that's blogging, reading, talking with God, and writing poetry.
Focus on the simplicity, let God blow your mind with it.

It's been so long again

So it has been a pretty full on number of weeks since I last wrote to all you lovely people who read this blog.
But they have been a good few weeks too. Had our exams for last term (they went pretty well, thanks for asking). And then holidays last week.
Holidays were great! Got to see a lot of people, and just chill, which is fantastic. It was so cool to see the homeland with all its lovely green-ness. Thank God for New Zealand, and all you awesome people who live in it.
I've been thinking, just now, about worship songs that we sing in church and such. Having grown up in church, I just kind of sing any song that they are playing as a worship band, and that kind of worries me now. Since coming to Bible College, I guess I have become more aware of what we are singing in church and what it means to those who sing it.
One of our lecturers in term 1 was talking about the song "Indescribable". Now, one of the lyrics of this song is "Who has told every lightning bolt where it should go?" But if that is the case, then what about all those people killed and injured from being hit by lightning? Does God want people to be hit by lightning? I don't know, because sometimes, may be He allows it to happen, as He allows so many other bad things to happen in this world. But it does bring up a good point.
Another thing that I have been thinking about was a time I was in church and we were singing "Blessed be Your Name". As far as I can gather (and I have sung this song many times, and know all of the lyrics) this song is about praising God in the good times and the bad times. The pastor got up after singing this song, with an interpretation of the bridge which says:
"You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord blessed be Your Name"
and so it was interpreted that the way this works is that God will take away your sickness, and all those things that are going wrong in your life, and then He will give you healing, and all the good things in life.
Now, don't get me wrong, I do believe that God does that in life, and there are many examples of this through history and around the world. And the interpretation used for this church service may have been appropriate.
BUT, I do not think that this is what Matt Redman meant when he wrote this song.
The bridge I think should be interpreted in context with the rest of the song, which makes it mean that no matter what comes in life, the good and the bad, it doesn't matter, because I will bless the Name of the Lord, because that is the ultimate thing! That is a powerful theme to have for a song, and I believe it is right, and God loves it when we overcome the bad and rise over it in praise for our God who rides through it all with us.
Anyway, those are two thoughts/examples on worship songs in church. Now instead of just singing, I am trying to use my head with my worship and listen to and mean what I am singing to my God. It makes worship come alive, and helps especially for us younger generation who may find ourselves in a church singing hymns.
Why don't you try it one day soon?

Balancing

It seems like Christianity is such a balancing act. You can't go one way, or the other, without being 'wrong' in it. It certainly is a narrow path to walk and the Bible tells us to not take one step to the right or to the left, like a balancing act, a tightrope, you can't lean either way without falling off the wire! I kind of came to this while reading about the ecumenical councils for my church history assignment. The councils were discussing how Jesus had two natures, and two wills to correspond with those natures, but people were swinging one way by saying he had two utterly separate natures, or merging them completely by saying he only had one will. But in reality it seems likely (and this is what I believe) that Jesus does have two natures, but they are neither completely merged, nor are they completely separate. They are God-done, so that we cannot really perceive how they are put together, just kind of know that they are indeed put together. Just the whole balance thing. And tonight at KYB more revelation came: It is the Holy Spirit which is our great balancer! To keep with the illustration of the tightrope, the Holy Spirit is that big long stick that the people use to help keep their balance. Sometimes it is appropriate to swing slightly one way or the other, and it is the Holy Spirit which helps us see that. He is the one who keeps us steady. Now this is where the analogy falls short, however, in that a skilled tightrope artist can do it without the stick and still make it to the other side without falling. However, in life, we cannot make it to Heaven without the Holy Spirit in us, and that does not happen without belief in Jesus and that we need to cross the tightrope in the first place!

POEM Tuesday! Harrah!

Got very inspired in my class this morning, and so I wrote a poem :)
I'm quite proud of this one, so I hope you like it!

Darkness Falls, Light Prevails.

Darkness falls
The end has come
Jesus is dead
The curtain is torn
The earth shakes
The devil proclaims
He has won.

On that early morn
Light rose again
Sunday is here
The Son rises again
All through the world
Let it be known
Through and through...

Light Prevails!

Copyright 2010, Jo Wallace

SLEEP

I have to say, I like sleep, quite a lot.
Especially recently, because I have been quite tired.
The bulk of this poem came to me just before bed one night, so I scribbled it down, so that I would not forget it, and allow me to sleep (I find I can't really sleep if I am trying to remember something, so if I write it down I can forget it long enough to sleep. Just some sleep advice right there :)

Anyway, lets stop mucking around, and get to the poem. Enjoy!

Sleep.

Sleep is the lobby between one day and the next.
It divides the days that fall through the passage of time
Onto us mere mortals who wander through it all.
Sleep separates us from the past that binds,
And the future which has its fears.
It hems us in to focus on today,
On the now, which is freedom.

Copyright, Joanna Wallace, 2010.

Fear mongering

So during the last term, we gt a visit from Roy Woods, a missionary who used to live in Papua New Guinea with the Akyom people there. We heard s much about their culture before and after Jesus was introduced to their tribe. It was amazing the differences Jesus brought in all of their lives.
The thin was before they got Jesus was that they were very fearful all the time. They did not even have a word in their language for happiness. They lived in very tall tree-houses and did not trust their own tribes people a few tree-houses away! There was always pay back to be made, but you never knew when that was going to occur, which can be the biggest fear around.
Now, I have come back to NZ and to the influence of the television media again (I don't watch TV in Australia). I can see the fear mongering influence in the ads. They are all about making you look good, so that you do not age, essentially because aging is not seen as something worthwhile in our western culture. What ever happened to aging gracefully? Can we not deal with looking at our face in the mirror so that we must put makeup on everyday and add colour to our eyes? We should not fear growing old. God made us to grow old. Proverbs 16:31 says "Gray hair is a crown of splendor; it is attained by a righteous life." So why do we fear it? Why do we cover it up?
We think we are better than the tribes-people who fear each other. But do we not do the same thing, just in a more modern way?

Monks, Cheerleaders, and Activists

You are now probably expecting a crazy joke about these three types of people right?? Well, I am sorry to disappoint you, but I do not know any jokes about these three? Do you? Leave them in comments, I'd love to hear them!

Anyways, the reason I am talking about these three things is because I went to the Vetamorphus retreat thingo in the weekend as a part of the BMW course, and getting my Certificate 3 in Christian Ministry (Don't ask me what a Cert 3 is, I honestly don't know, some kind of Australian High School something).
Anyway, the guest speaker was this guy called Steve, and he was very good. And he was the one who originally spoke about Monks, Cheerleaders, and Activists.
You see, we were talking about Church and stuff, and what the minimal things required to make a church was. And then he told a story about talking to a bunch of ladies wondering what it was that he did. He was in fact (a pastor?) over a collection of house churches.
He knew, though, that if he said he was a pastor, or any of that Christianese stuff, that it would turn them off entirely. So he used this illustration:
Church as a collection of Monks, Cheerleaders and Activists.
Monks: In any religion Monks set themselves a part to search for a higher being that they are sure exists. They try to seek out what that being wants from us.
Cheerleaders: In their original sense, cheerleaders exist to cheer on the team for what they are doing. They also encourage one another to keep doing so even when the team is losing.
Activists: Activists realise that all the world is in turmoil. It's a big problem. But they believe that they can be active in putting the world back together by doing a small part that the higher being asks us to do.

I thought that this was such an amazing concept that I had to share it with you. It rings so true with me and with what we do. And gives others an idea about what Church and being a Christian is all about.

Poem Sunday! Harrah!

God, the
Only One,
Dangerous is He.

Going
Outside of His way
Disastrous it may be.

Get
Over yourself
Die to yourself.

Give
Over to Him,
Deliver yourself to the Father.

Guide you, He will
Over and above all else
Death, then, cannot separate you.

copyright, Joanna Wallace 2010


So, I have had a bit of fun with acrostic poems recently. Mainly because we have been looking at Hebrew poetry in Old Testament, and some of the Psalms were written in an acrostic way. For example Psalm 119, each of the sections starts with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Which is why the Psalm is the longest chapter in the Bible. Epic!

Anyway, that's all for now. Talk to you all later in the week!

Australia Zoo

I have just been at Australia Zoo. And it was mega uber awesome fun!
Though I have discovered something, and I am quite glad to have come to this realisation:

Humans are more important than animals.

I do not deny the fact that animals are important and that we should look after them, however, I have decided within myself that humans are more important.
Now, I am not a people person. But I do know the worth of fellow human beings to my sanity, and to my joy and passion for life and for correcting and solidifying opinions.
I also want them to come to heaven with me. Otherwise heaven would be lonely. And who wants to spend eternity without other humans? God is sufficient, but people add to the wholeness of God. Each person on earth reveals a part of God. And we don't want missing pieces to miss out.
Animals on the other hand do not have spirits like we humans do. I love animals, and indeed we have been called to look after the flora and fauna while on the earth, but spending all of our money on saving animals, seems a bit ridiculous when put in the light of eternity, and other peoples lives!

While I was there, I bought a soft-toy Wombat, because I decided that wombats were one of my favourite Australian mammals. (this after seeing the poor thing get weighed!)

Then I realised that I just spent money on a soft toy that is not useful for well, anything really.
I could have bought a pen, or at least just a plan postcard which may or may not be used, and at least in the long run, be recyclable. But I didn't, because I am fickle, and wanted a really soft wombat toy. Though I am learning slowly that though I like to horde, and love getting souvenirs, it doesn't mean that they have to be useless things to sit on the mantle for eternity!
oh well! So that was my learnings from an amazing day at Australia Zoo. Thanks team, and God Bless you Irwin family for what you are doing for this planet!

Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano

So, a big volcano started to erupt in Iceland. What does it have to do with us, on the other side of the world.
EVERYTHING it appears.
It is similar to a world crisis of oil: because the ash from the [crazy named volcano] (and they wonder why Icelandic is the hardest language to learn in the world) has floated across the airspace in Europe, it has stopped the movement of hundreds of thousands of people wishing to get on airplanes. This will interrupt imports, business meetings, and will bring Europe almost to a pre-commercial flight time.
This affects us because, in New Zealand (not sure about Australia) we import a number of goods, and are not fully self sufficient. This also affects our exports (a large amount of our dollars comes from this) and the tourism industry of Europeans to NZ.
How long will this volcano continue to spew ash into the atmosphere? Only God knows that. How long will it take for the ash to subside so that flights will resume? Even longer than that.
What to do in the meantime? Pray for the volcano, pray for the people disrupted, and pray for those whose insurance won't cover their extended stays in other countries.
Lets just hope that it all will blow over soon.

Marsh Flies

are NINJAS

These are the local HORRIBLE flies that bite. Or sting. Or whatever, but they hurt.
Anyway, while sewing up the sumo suits for Easterfest (yes this is one of the awesome jobs for which I have been assigned to do), the sneakey Marsh fly (which flies in a silent manner, similar to the ways in which ninjas sneak up on people) and landed on my ankle. And then it bit me. Through my sock. It was not even a very easy location to get to at the time, but it wanted to get me around the ankle so it flew around the sumo suit sitting on top of me (I like to call him Blue because he has a blue jock strap thingo) and he got me. *sigh* well I survived atleast!
That is all.

Early Poem Sunday

Because I can:

THE CRESCENT

The crescent moon flies high,
Through the trees that surround me,
And seem to encompass me in darkness.

I live in light,
Despite the pitch black surrounds.
That moon shines down,
And makes shadows as in the day

When the clouds deny me the light,
I know that it is still there,
By the reflection it makes on those clouds
Which try to conceal the light,
And fail at it.

Copyright 2010 Joanna Wallace


Yeah, so there was a way awesome moon out tonight :)
I heart stars and moon. Also we had a work team come in today and they did lots of work on our new buildings. It was way awesome because it was supposed to rain today (due to a cyclone coming near) but it didn't rain! Thank you God!

POEM SUNDAY!!

WOW! I remembered poem sunday, Harrah!
This is one I wrote at the end of November last year. I totally got inspired by some of the awesome 'holy' poetry I was reading in my Poem a Day devotional.
SO here goes:

THE GREAT WALK

The first great walk,
The trip from Eden,
Where they saw the oil so red
Poured from the animal which now clothes them.
Now they stood upon a rock
Which caused that same liquid upon their own flesh
The same they are.

The last great walk,
The trip to Golgotha,
Where all saw the oil so red
Pour from the Son of God.
Now we stand upon that Rock
Which covers us in that same liquid
The same we are.

Copyright 2009, Joanna Wallace

THAT'S one of the best poems I have ever written. Can't guarantee other poem Sundays will be as good, but we shall see.
TALK to you later in the weekos!