Some people are tired of being tired: today is international CFS/ME Awareness Day

12 May is the international awareness day for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS). 12 May was chosen to commemorate the birth in 1820 of Florence Nightingale who inspired the founding of the International Red Cross. Nightingale is believed to have contracted ME/CFS in her thirties. She spent the last fifty years of her life virtually bedridden.

Here’s some facts that you may not know about the condition: (Source: ME/CFS Vic)

- 25 per cent are so severely affected by symptoms that they are bedbound or housebound.

Mourning a missed major

Dear Literature,

Thank you for letting me re-discover parts of you this recently. This enriching experience has, however, occasioned twinges of regret for abstaining from acquaintance with you at university (this is colloquially known as ‘blowing you off’, ‘snubbing you’ or ‘giving you the cold shoulder’).

Your subject ‘Contemporary Australian Literature’ enticed me. But I was repelled by the thought of rushing through such delicacies (‘A book a week?! That’s crazy!’); unable to savour their unique taste. I was also uncertain about whether I could avoid plays – sorry to offend those members of your family. I decided to pursue my love of analysis through political science and history. In a sense, I searched for living water in other wells.

But oh literature I do like you. Your carefully constructed words laden with meaning and imbued with emotion. Or seemingly flung – discordant and haunting – onto the page but with pattern and form floating almost imperceivable underneath.

I love how you compel a myriad of readings that are then spun into impassioned essays: Marxist, post-structuralist, feminist, post-colonialist, psychoanalytic. Your interlocutors are rarely detached and distant. If we’ve taken the time to converse with you then you’ve probably engaged, enraged or invaded us. Your expressions have coalesced with our own to move us somewhere unexpected. Unlike a tidy formula in a political science journal, you speak to the universal and particular of human experience.

And yet you construct meaning as we construct our readings of you. The dynamic interplay of reader and text, meaning and interpretation is unceasingly re-formed and shaped. You grow as we grow, and change as we change. New spaces within culture, time and geography extend you, but there you remain: your neat black text just waiting to be unravelled in a new way.

My favourites sit quietly upon my shelf. Each is attached to memories, places and people – it seems that no book (even in a library) is an island. It’s a delight to see my housemate discovering many of your treasures. Her delight at compelling narratives reignites mine. In contrast, thus far my bulky tomes of history inform me, but they don’t often move me. They change my thoughts but largely leave my heart stagnate and languishing (n.b. Reformation and Post-Reformation church history may be an exception to this, but we’ll see).

So, to summarise: literature, I’m sorry for deserting you. We got on so well in year eleven and twelve where you drew me in with pensive T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas and Sylvia Plath poetry, contemporary Australian works by Hannie Rayson, Tim Winton and Louis Nowra and surprisingly even Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. Though you failed to nurse my interest during your Judith Wright period (sorry, I just couldn’t get into veiled references to the Vietnam War through nature-based analogies, perhaps because I’ve never been able to appreciate the sensory delights of nature in the same way as Wright); the amazing metaphors within The Great Gatsby, Donnie Darko and A Streetcar Named Desire re-kindled my appetite.

Thanks again.

Your Hosea’s Wife,

Elizabeth.

Writers talk about writing #2- Søren Kierkegaard

redditorschoice.com

Inspired by good friends of mine who are into all things Existentialist (and consequently take morality and ethics pretty seriously), I’ve been delving into Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling. Here Kierkegaard seeks to understand the anxiety Abraham presumably would have felt when God asked him to sacrifice Isaac. His central thesis is that a true understanding of God can only be grasped by making a personal ‘leap of faith’.

I usually find philosophy a bit too abstract and esoteric at the best of times, but I’ve recently discovered that the nexus between (or amongst!) social theory/philosophy and theology offers up a range of exciting theoretical possibilities that I’ve not considered and is useful in dealing with some of the ‘problems’ of engaging Christian theology with post-modernity (disclaimer: I don’t pretend to understand much at this stage).

At some point, I’m hoping to read Milbank’s classic Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason, but I suspect that James K. A. Smith’s Introducing Radical Orthodoxy: Mapping a Post-secular Theology will be a more accessible introduction.

Anyway, in the introduction of F&T Kierkegaard explains how he does not wish to create a reductive System which panders to whims of a popular audience. Rather,

Scot McKnight refutes penal substitution as the central metaphor for the atonement

faithmbc.org

Back in 2008 when I was a fresh-faced first-year university student, a preacher contended that penal substitutionary atonement (PSA) was the most important way to understand what Jesus did on the cross. Whilst trying not to be thrown by a brief digression into the importance of capital punishment to accurately meter out ‘justice’, I managed to catch his explanation -  that by giving prominence to any other theory diminishes emphasis upon the wrath of God at humanity’s sinfulness, the total depravity of humanity in their sinfulness and the need for God to turn away his wrath (propitiation) before he could take away our sin (expiation). In other words, other theories make us look like better people than we actually are, lesson the significance of Jesus’ death and ultimately reduce God’s glory.

Enter McKnight. Arguing that we can’t fully know how atonement works and the various metaphors of atonement (reconciliation, justification, ransom, substitution, Christus Victor, scapegoat theory, etc.) are the clubs a golfer uses in a typical round (of life) but knows that each club is required for different shots, McKnight suggests our inability to:

More thoughts about what the resurrection achieves

 

http://www.gahr-metalart.com/artworks/seiten/resurrection_christ_grave.htm

As today is Easter Sunday, (‘Christ is Risen’/'He is Risen Indeed, Hallelujah!’), it seemed like a good opportunity to think a little more about whether the resurrection has a different role in soteriology to Jesus’ death on the cross (see some earlier thoughts here).

 

This opportunity was provided earlier today by a post from Michael Bird’s entitled Easter Sunday Thought: Raised for our Justification.

 

Bird argues that he initially believed that salvation and justification were mutually achieved by the cross. But he’s come to believe that the resurrection has a special significance of its own:

The grace of congregational singing

If grace is so wonderful, why do we have such difficulty recognising and accepting it? Maybe it’s because grace is not gentle or made-to-order. It often comes disguised as loss, or failure, or unwelcome change.  Kathleen Norris

We sing.

We sing to You for Love has been poured into our hearts.

 

Is a mind which confers assent enough? I wonder.

Still and watching. Unmoved.

‘At least Moses felt his inadequacy

And Judas his guilt’.

If only  Deep calls to deep

    in the roar of your waterfall

was my song.

A deer which pants is more Thirsty

than an indifferent heart. If I’ve fallen on this stone, I’m supposed to be

Broken to pieces.

Right?

 

Yet we sing.

We sing to You for Love has been poured into our hearts. But

We sing also for the ‘us’ who aren’t presently

Aroused by Love’s throbbing pulse.

Our voices lift up and carry the sound-less

For we are still a body, nourished and fed by its Head

Who gave some of us voices to sing whilst permitting others’ hearts to be still…

 

The river laps imperceptibly underneath.

Discovering an artwork depicting the Melbourne General Cemetery

Readers of this blog might know that I love the Melbourne Cemetery.

So when Jason Smith, the director of the Heide Museum of Modern Art (another place I must blog about – definitely one of my favourite places!) named Louise Forthun’s Melbourne Cemetery as the artwork that best captures his sense of Melbourne, I knew I had to find the artwork!

An email to the artist herself tracked down the work. It certainly captures the cluttered and sprawling yet evocative nature of the place. And the painting also aptly juxtaposes its modern urban locale with its Victorian-era heritage.

For the record, here’s what Smith had to say about the Cemetery (which sums up my feelings exactly):

There’s something about the proximity of the Melbourne General Cemetery to Melbourne University and the city centre that intrigues me. I have a rather gothic sensibility. I like the night and cemeteries, and this is quintessentially Melbourne for me. I’m intrigued that such a vast necropolis exists in the city centre. I also find it intriguing for the sheer volume of famous identities buried there.

I’ve even more excited because soon I will be living in the area, which will hopefully lead to experiencing its confluence of gothic and Edwardian architecture on a more regular basis, as well as its sprawling parks, soaring gum trees and clattering trams.

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=316726

What does Jesus’ resurrection achieve?

http://mattanslow.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/slain-lamb.jpg

I have long wondered if there’s a difference between what Jesus’ death achieved and what his resurrection accomplished, and if so, the nature of the relationship between them.

In his classic work The Cross of Christ, John Stott has this to say about the relationship between Christ’s death and resurrection (p 275-8):

- Christ’s victory over death was not achieved by his resurrection. It was achieved by his death.

- Yes, it’s beyond doubt the death and resurrection of Jesus belong together in the NT, and that the one is seldom mentioned without the other (e.g. Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:34; John 10:17-18, cf. 2:19).

- And the two gospel sacraments from the beginning bore witness to both, since in baptism one symbolically dies and rises with Christ, while at the Lord’s Supper it is the risen Lord who makes himself known to us through the emblems which speak of his death.

Being single and overseas missionary service: to stay or go?

Image from http://sigoya.com/design-typographic-world-map/

 

1/1/2013 edit: I suspect I’m probably wrong about what I propose here. But I need to do some more reading about the interaction between God’s sovereignty and human free will before I suggest anything else…

If last week’s topic of conversation was whether to have children, this week’s has been whether to go risk going overseas as a inter-cultural missionary if you’re single.

What’s the risk?

Well, it’s a large-ish one, actually. That by going overseas may prevent you from meeting Mr or Ms Right back in Australia. That you’ll be stuck in singleness for ever, because by the time you return all the available guys/girls will have been taken.

But, in the scheme of eternity, is this really the case?

Thoughts on the ethics of overseas travel

Image from: http://www.bhmpics.com

On and off over the years, I’ve considered the ethics of overseas travel.

I’ve had the input of a variety of voices, written and spoken, as I’ve weighed up whether overseas travel for leisure is ethically acceptable.

These have all come to a head as I plan a trip next year!

Admittedly, the basis of my trip is study: a ‘Reformation Tour’ subject where we travel through parts of Germany, France and Switzerland whilst learning about the Reformation and completing coursework. But I’ve still wrestled with the issues below as I’ve considered whether to extend my trip.

This post is primarily going to ponder the ethics of spending money on overseas travel. Other important ethical issues like the effect travel can have on the natural environment (carbon emissions, environmental degradation on beaches etc) and the potentially exploitative nature of travel (e.g. people who are paid poorly so that we can enjoy cheap accommodation) aren’t going to be explored in this post.

Here are some of the arguments I’ve heard for and against overseas travel: