cute lost sheep

Download limits

Download limits

My broadband scheme

allows me to chronologically download

approximately 2.6 megasecs

per calendar month.

Once I exceed that pre-ordained limit

the seconds speed up and I am at risk

of cutting into next month’s allocation.

It’s a matter of using it wisely;

staying away from the dodgey sites,

and trying not to squander too much

upon the unworthy distractions

which seem to have proliferated

these recent years.

Those who know best about such things

tell me that I must strive to achieve

the maximum result

from the largest number of seconds.

They insist that I must expend my supply

in a prudent and balanced manner:

committing myself to a calculated juggling

of employment and family; friendship,

community, God, art, leisure

and pleasure. I am also required

to work diligently in order to counteract

the various quantums of guilt

that attach themselves

to some of the above activities,

and which seem to be wired-in

to my way of being.

I am, by nature, profligate,

and on those occasions

wherein I am less than vigilant,

the kilosecs slip clumsily through my

wasteful fingers;

especially when I become lazy

and allow myself to dream.

© Ken Rookes 2010

Choose life

"choose life" a comment on Deuteronomy

In some evangelical churches, salvation is front loaded with the most emphasis placed on the moment of decision. Yet this text points to a broader understanding of decision. "Choose life" is a matter of living that is expressed in loving God, in hearing him, in walking in his ways, in keeping his torah, in holding fast to him and not going astray. Choosing the life that God has offered means living out that life in such a way that it creates life, that it brings about blessings that come from living in harmony with God and his world.

Still, there is the unmistakable dimension of this text that choices make a difference. There is absolutely no sense here that God decides people’s relationship with God, nor that once it is decided by us or God that the choice is then irreversible. There are clearly implications here that the choice, the life lived hearing God or refusing to hear, create their own effects in the world for good or evil. While God offers life, there is a sense in which we also create that life as we respond by choosing life. If we reject it, we have chosen death and by so doing then we create a death in the world that consumes us. To choose life is not only to accept life but also to create life; to reject life is not only to choose death but to create death in the world.

Life is realized by living in God’s world hearing the voice of God. It is in that sense that this text pleads, "Choose life, so that you and your descendants may live!" Life is also realized by doing God’s word, by living torah, by "loving the lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him" (v. 20). It is in that sense that the text cries, "for that means life to you."

from http://www.cresourcei.org/lectionary/YearA/Aepiphany6ot.html

One step, another.

One step, another.

Travelling, one step, another;

pause. Glance around,

does anyone else seem to be heading

in the same direction? No.

Each new step

must bear the weight of a new decision,

an evaluation that balances

the original sense that someone

or something has called me out

beyond my comfortable self,

with the feeling of absurdity;

that the journey exists in the first place.

The fist place, of course,

had been long taken

by one who saw his path through

to its difficult conclusion.

Travelling across

a sometimes bleak landscape,

dotted with the sorrowful tracks

of those who have wandered aimlessly,

he proceeded to plant his own

intentional footprints of compassion;

small illuminations

that point defiantly to the possibilities

or pilgrimage.

Those who also follow take heart

from their defiant warmth

and are encouraged to add their own.

Ken Rookes 2010

God's World - Our World. KUCA Camp Out 2011

KUCA Camp Out will be held on 2nd - 3rd April 2011, at the Euroa Showgrounds

Camp Out is an overnight camp for children in years 3 - 6, although children of any age are welcome to attend with their families.

Camp Out is heaps of fun, with most children attending as part of church-based groups.

Clown Team
Our team of Clowns provides important leadership at Camp Out. We are keen to recruit new clowns, and would welcome people from age 15 upwards to consider this vital ministry!
We will be holding a clowning workshop on Saturday 20th November 2010 at Euroa Uniting Church. Further details to follow.

If you have enquiries about either Camp Out or the Clowning Workshop, contact Ken Rookes: kro23808@bigpond.net.au

The perfect dinner party

Welcoming the poor to the table

Imagine if either of the two major party leaders actually decided to take up the challenge to give a banquet for the poor, the crippled the blind and the lame.

The feast

domesticated hospitality

We have domesticated hospitality, shaped a kind of eco-system of inviting that keeps the welcome circulating among our own "kind" of people, or at least those we can feel comfortable around. Our generosity toward strangers and all those we might consider "strange" is often offered from a distance, without personal contact. But Peluso-Verdend reminds us that the "Greek word for hospitality, philoxenia, means 'love of the stranger,'" and "banquet behavior fitting for the reign of God ought to affect dinner invitations even now" (New Proclamation 2007). Byars observes that the list of those "strangers" changes from one time and place to another, the ones "whom respectable people expect to turn aside. Jesus' challenge reaches across boundaries of place and time, calling us to be more aware of those from whom we are inclined to avert our eyes, and to follow him rather than those who baptize common prejudices as virtues" – that is, we are to include at our tables "those who do not take an invitation for granted" (Feasting on the Word). In those moments, we will catch a glimpse of the way things will be in the reign of God, but not because we have condescended to welcome those "beneath" us; rather, we will understand that Jesus has changed "the rules" for, as Dianne Bergant writes, he "redefines" both "honorable behavior" and "honored guests."

from http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/august-29-2010-l.html

Nathan Nettleton Gospel version

Luke 14: 1, 7-14

........Once on the Sabbath, Jesus was invited to a dinner at the home of one of the leading members of the Pharisee party. Throughout the evening, he was being closely watched by everyone there.
........Noticing how most of the guests were angling for seats at the top of the table, Jesus spoke up with a word of advice:

“When you are invited as a guest to a formal dinner — a wedding banquet or the like — don’t rush to park yourself in the number one seat. There may be some more prominent celebrities on the guest list, and when one of them turns up, your host will come and ask you to vacate your seat for them. You’ll have egg all over your face in front of everyone, and there may be nothing but the scummy seats left for you. If you are wanting to look good in public, it would be a much better strategy to park yourself down in the back corner somewhere. Then when you are seen down there, your host will come and say, ‘Come on, my friend, we can find you a better seat than this.’ You’ll get a much better write-up in the social pages for that! The fact is that those who big-note themselves will be knocked off their perches, but those who avoid the limelight will end up as everyone’s hero.”

Then Jesus turned to the one who had invited him and said:

“When you are throwing a party, don’t just invite your friends, family and well-heeled neighbours. They will all return the favour sometime and so, rather than being a gift, your party will become something you are repaid for. Instead, invite people who are always being left out — the down-and-outs, the misfits, the refugees, the disabled. You’ll find that it’s far more richly rewarding, and although they can never repay you, when God’s people are all raised from the dead, you’ll be more than repaid.”

©2001 Nathan Nettleton LaughingBird.net