oops

Accent On Albury is a glossy brochure our local council produces a few times each year, with community events and promotions. I always read it right through - not only is it well put together but I like to get some idea of what's on locally.

The front page piece for February 2010 is 'Take care to protect cyclists on our roads'. It aims at informing (reminding of road rules) and especially at improving safety. There must be some concern at our statistics:

The percentage of Albury car crashes in which a cyclist is hurt or killed is more than double the state average.

Sixty-seven cyclists were killed or injured on our roads from 2004-2008. Of all car crashes in Albury that resulted in casualties, 13% involved a cyclist, compared with 5.8% across NSW.

It's good to make us think of safety. But I doubt that the council is really concerned. If they were, they would have to consider the condition of local roads, as well as decisions made in road planning. Some are crazy. Instead of this, the only suggested reason for such a high rate is participation.

To some extent, these figures reflect the number of local people who cycle, according to AlburyCity's Road Safety Officer, Kate de Henin.

Hmm. Sounds like too easy an explanation. As soon as you do any reading on cycling and safety, you come across quotations like this, from Bicycle Victoria:

A new study published in the April 2005 issue of the Health Promotion Journal of Australia has found that the more pedestrians and cyclists who share the roads with motorists, the more likely they are to arrive at their destination safely, supporting the concept of 'safety in numbers'

In other words, Albury should have fewer injuries and deaths, having a higher participation rate. I like what this article does to remind about roads rules. I commend its tone of voice - not confrontational or finger-pointing. But I also think it's time for council to work harder on roads, road markings, intersections, and cycle lanes.

I recently read The Anthologist, by Nicholson Baker. It's full of discussions of poetry - for the narrative voice is of a man, a poet, who continually defers writing the introduction to an anthology of poems he edited.

Lots of poets get a mention, as well as arguments about if poems need to rhyme (this is a theme of the anthology the narrator is working on). A week or so after I finished reading the novel, I realised that there's a huge pile of non-rhyming poetry that did not rate a single mention. Important and influential poetry, too. Here's a little review/reflection I wrote about the novel:

Wonderfully written tale of the narrator trying to convince himself he's not a poet (and that life is not poetic?). He fails (even if life does not always have the desired meter and rhyme).

Like poetry, the novel does not try to tie up all the threads neatly into easy meaning.

One thing troubles me, however. In a book that frequently discussed the origins non-rhyming poetry, there's not a single reference to biblical poetry.

For centuries the psalms have been read, chanted and sung. They don't rhyme in English (just as they don't in Hebrew). Their use has been both wide and deep.Their influence is profound (we accept the effects of the King James Version on worldwide English).

Why nothing on the Bible and poetry? I suspect it's an appearance of the usual secularistic blind spot 'I have dispensed with God stuff, therefore God stuff is not relevant to our world or culture.'

Many people use the 'football ground' as a standard measure of size. A documentary on the fires of 7 February 2009 (Black Saturday) told me that the area burnt was a quarter of a million football grounds.

So, as a public service, the size of footy fields. Which type of football? Every type of football. (I will not include 'in-goal' areas - just the playing field.)

Starting furthest from Victoria: American football. From the NFL rules: The field is 360 feet long and 160 feet wide. That's 57 600 square feet (about 5350 square metres).

For Rugby Union: the field of play is to be 'as near as possible' to 70m wide by 100m long. That's 7000 square metres.

Rugby League rules reflect the 'adult' scandal associated with its players ('For adult games the dimensions should be as near maximum as possible to the dimensions stipulated.') - the stipulated dimensions are 68m width by 100m length. 6800 square metres.

Association Football - OK, it's soccer - specify a range of sizes, not just a maximum. In general, the width must be from 45-90m wide and 90-120m long. Specifically for international games, the width is to be 64-75m and the length 100-110m. I'll stick with internationals, giving an area in the range of 6400-8250 square metres.

And finally, well and truly into Victoria, the rules of AFL. This field is to be oval, with length between 135-185m, and width 110-155m. To simplify I'll assume the field is an ellipse, which gives the following range of areas: 11 650-22 500 square metres.

I am against revolution. It's selfish.

Take the example of popular music and groups that have the reputation of being revolutionary. What, in your experience, are they like? In mine: they're incendiary, abusive and specialise in sneering and lots of yelled expletives. 'Those @*!!# are awful.' It's always 'them' - government, corporations, institutions, ...

The love of revolution can also present as a smug journalist with two paragraphs of mock outrage. 'Mock', because there's no real empathy and no desire to get involved.

My disagreement with revolution is that it tries to stand outside the problem. It claims not to be a part of issues, real though they are. But as soon as a revolution is successful - USSR, Mao's China, etc - the former outsiders show up just as venial and violent as their former targets.

There's only one true outsider to our world, God. And the incarnation showed God becoming an insider, God with us. Jesus pitched his tent among us (John 1:14). Being among brought about real change, and a real attack on all that's evil in our world.

So in society and the church, I long to hear people admit that we are the problem. It's not us against them, it's us against us.

In sharing the wonder of Jesus, I/we can't get involved in yelling at people from a great height. I'll do well to get alongside people, and say, 'Here's something that God says about us, and our problems, and his solution.'

The quotation below is from this article in The Age.

The ideology of positive thinking has infiltrated the Australian way of life. In the workplace, employees who ask hard questions are often seen as negative and counter-productive, team members who do not conform (or dislike playing team-building games) are thought to damage morale, consensus is valued and debate considered unhelpful.

The article reflects on a book with a wonderful title, Smile or Die. I haven't read the book, or even heard of it till now. Perhaps I'll keep a look out. The ideas quoted, in my experience, fit what usually goes on in churches. We say 'unity' and we mean 'uniformity' or 'don't rock the boat.' This doesn't particularly mirror what Jesus did - and still does - in the world. He's a notorious world-shaker.

So I want to say: be a good Christian and argue and disagree sometimes!

Compulsory happiness & positivity also hamstrings evangelism. We long to invite our friends to trust & follow Jesus. This includes the message that all people are lost without Jesus. Hard to say this without the risk upsetting some. So we might just leave out that bit ...

Certainly we don't need to be argumentative - but we can safely assume that folks will tell us if we err in that manner. It's much more dangerous to never have the essential disagreements - folks won't complain, so we can float along in life and leave no lasting impression at all.

Here's a new entry for the SI units. That's système idiosyncratique ...


This time it's not mine, but taken directly from the information sheet included with Voltaren gel. They tell us how much to use:

Usually an amount ranging in size from a cherry to a walnut will be enough.

Now we know - and we know new standard measures as well.

Got in the car this morning (after sweeping out the broken glass from smashed driver's side window - grr!) and on the radio was Australia All Over. I don't usually get to hear this. The radio, after all, exists to broadcast cricket to the world.

Anyway, 'Macca' spoke of extra milers. That mums and grandmothers for years have been 'extra milers' and the we (on his show) love the extra milers. They're extra dedicated, selfless, ...

Does he know where it's from? No idea. It's worth knowing, though. Jesus said this, as recorded in Matthew 5:

38 "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' 39 But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40 And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. 41 And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. 42 Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you." esv

I'm sure Jesus was not on about devoted behaviour. It's more about the higher justice that issues in mercy, the kind of justice God himself shows. But that's a whole new posting.

January - traditional time for Little family swimming lessons.

The kids wanted me to view their newly-improved skills, so yesterday (my day off) I went and watched. Good fun - and a cooling swim afterwards. There are many sports for kids to get involved with, hey? Just for our crew I've watched cricket and soccer and track cycling and gymnastics and athletics and swimming (Nahum went to golf this week too, but I wasn't there as witness).

There's something about kids' sports training that I've noticed more than once. It's this: the skills training has much more focus than when I was a kid.

For example, I've played plenty of soccer. But I was always more determined than skilled. The junior stuff I heard our kids taught had a much better plan for teaching real skills (ball control, moves, ...). Even with swimming this week I've been interrogating the kids about better breathing and stroke-making. I pretend to them I'm helping them remember. I can be honest with you to say I'm learning to swim better through them! (That's our little secret, kind reader.)

This has me thinking about church and ministry. Plenty of people are involved in helping out. Many have probably been thrown into the water and told to swim. With God's help, they didn't drown.

It's so much more helpful if, when they start, people more experienced can help with skills training. How to read and understand the Bible as a whole, how to formulate questions for a Bible study, how to actively listen to the objections to Christianity a friend holds, what to do after a church meeting even when you don't have a 'job', ...

I wonder how I can do this better, as a minister of a church? I wonder if people at church know it's what I think is important? Hmmm, work to do.

By which I means to ask, 'For how long should we pray?'

With the title of this post, I've taken a powerful biblical question (see the powerful prayer for justice and comfort in Psalm 13) and twisted it to be about something different. Because that's what I feel we do with Jesus' words on prayer.

Jesus says:

And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
Matthew 6 (esv)

I confess: I know he speaks the truth, but I am forever tempted not to believe him.

I have a tendency - shared with all Christians, I think - to judge that more must be better. More impressive. More effective. This turns prayer away from relationship and into pragmatics. Here are some things I have heard:
~ 'You should be praying for at least half an hour a day'
~ 'You really find out what prayer is when you spend all night in prayer'
~ 'What a great hero of faith was NN. S/he spent three hours every morning in prayer'

What's wrong here? They forget Jesus' warning. They measure godliness by word count. It's not that using words in prayer is bad - words are essential. It's just that this is not the way to make an assessment of faithfulness.

So, for me, when I seek to improve in prayerfulness I always seek to avoid simply judging how I'm going by how many phrases I manage to pile up.

The photos below I snapped about 100m from home. (And, at 4pm on a day of 36°C, I now recommend against the barefoot option.) The road is Albury's internal freeway, opened in 2007, and is part of the Hume - the major transport route between Sydney and Melbourne.



Exciting, hey?

Well, perhaps exciting is not the word. Yet it is good & useful, brings more safety, etc. A road worth having.

(Another aside: this road probably enabled us to buy our house. I understand not one other offer was made on the place, with the road about the start construction. I don't mind this road.)


Here comes the roads & rides part of this posting. There's a tiny sign in the above photo. For your convenience, I have a separate shot of it for you. You are still welcome to visit Albury and read the sign for yourself.



You can enter the freeway at this point and ride north - which I have done - all the way to Sydney - which I have not. You can go across the river, and from there ride the whole freeway to Melbourne. That's over 500km north, or 300km south. But the two or three kilometers which cross the Murray River? Never!

Daft.

This road a great surface, good shoulders and good visibility. The alternative cycle-way is like following Alice down the rabbit-hole. So down the rabbit-hole we go.

I have seen one rider, though: a bmx guy with no helmet. Perhaps I should have run him over to point out the dangers of this smooth piece of tar. Maybe next time.