Obviously I won’t speak about their identities in any way, but not a single person who had anything to do with any of them seems to have anything positive to say, and they are responsible for so much misery and frustration for so many people, that I just want them to go away.

To a desert or a rock in the centre of an ocean, or something.

And that’s me being particularly gracious after hours of calming down.

I really worry for myself, in that I just don’t know how I can get past this.

This feeling about my birthday has been a fairly long standing emotion, at least since primary school, and each year as my birthday comes around I try to work out why I despise it so much… I’ve tried to articulate it to Fi but I find it hard to even articulate it to myself. It’s not that I don’t like getting older, I’m still in the age range where I quite look forward to getting older (& hopefully wiser), I’ve not reached the stage yet where all I want to do is be young again (mid-life crisis is hopefully still plenty of years away).

So what is it?

As I do my annual reflection again this year I know it’s got something to do with expectations. I try not to have any expectations of my birthday because experience tells me that I will be disappointed, so I try to treat it as just another day, nothing special, just a day like any other… But of course it’s not a day like any other… on this day you get presents, people send you special messages and well wishes for this day, people you haven’t spoken to for too long make the effort to contact you on this day, this is not a normal day. And so, as much as I try to pretend it’s a normal day with no expectations, I find myself drawn in to the “specialness” by all the attention… But this is not really the problem itself, it is just the fuel for the problem.

You see, if I’m honest, I’m a selfish person. I want the world focussed on me. I want the attention. Herein lies the problem. The attention of a birthday feeds my selfishness and now those simmering expectations I’ve tried to keep at bay start to bubble to the surface of my consciousness… on My birthday I want to be waited on hand and foot. I want to do what I want to do when I want to do it. I don’t want to have to anything I don’t feel like doing. I don’t want to be told what to do. I want uninhibited free reign because it’s MY BIRTHDAY! I, I, I, I, I, I… want, want, want… me, me, me…

Of course, it’s unreasonable to think that way, to behave that way, to be so selfish! And it’s just a stupid birthday! You haven’t invented the cure for cancer or brought peace to the world, you were just pushed out of your mothers womb, took a breath, screamed and then crapped out half a kilo of meconium… congratulations! Why do I feel like I should be at the centre of the earth on this day?

This is why I hate my birthday: because every selfish, sinful, & self-serving desire – those desires which wage war so forcefully and consistently with my identity in christ – on this day they are at their strongest. On this day their shouts for autonomy and worship are heard at their loudest. On this day the fruit of the forbidden tree is pressed up against your face the hardest. And I hate that.

There. I feel better.

Please don’t hear that I’m ungrateful for birthday wishes, presents, cards etc. This is me not you.

So the whole gay marriage debate seems to be centre stage at the moment with the Get-Up campaign to promote gay marriage kicking off today, the gay & lesbian mardi gras coming soon, and the Fred Nile group organising themselves for a protest against gay marriage. I’ve noticed a few twitters on the subject and received a few emails from both sides…

At the risk of displaying my ignorance, I have a 2 questions:

1. Do homosexuals have full legal entitlements in a civil union?
2. If so, what are the other reasons they want to have marriage over civil union?

To my mind if homosexual people do not have the same legal entitlements as married people then it is probably our job as christians to fight for their right to those entitlements – that is, if we are serious about loving all people regardless of race, colour, creed or sexuality. The gay couple who live together in de-facto and then split are as much entitled to equal super, and equal ownership of shared material possessions as the heterosexual de-facto couple who split.

This is not a question of Christian faith but a question of justice and upholding the rights of the vulnerable.

If we want to make this an issue of christian principle then we should also deny the marriage of pagan heterosexuals. If we are serious in saying (as the bible does) that homosexuality is no worse a sin than heterosexual immorality (sleeping around, unfaithfulness, promiscuity etc) then we need to be consistent with our stand across the board. Homosexuals who are denying the lordship of Jesus are as much entitled to marriage as Heterosexuals who are denying the lordship of Jesus.

If you’re going to make a stand for one or the other, just be consistent in applying your theology – if Jesus gets angry about anything, it’s hypocrisy and double standards.

Personally, if homosexuals get married or not, what difference does it make? They still need to hear the gospel and be radically transformed by it.

Life is fairly busy right now for me. Loads of family related stuff happening; we’re trying to sell our place; potentially buy/build a new place; find a place to live in the interim 12 (or so) months that will take; work is fairly full on; and I’ve been a bit unwell also (although I think the unwell thing is just a symptom of all the other stuff going on, which has limited my sleep… never a good recipe). I’ve been trying to keep my physical activity up (running etc), but even that has been intermittent.

In any case, Twitter/Facebook have been the limit of my online activity – which appears to be more than the other guys have been doing! Obviously our lives are all going through a hectic patch.

A side-effect of all this rushing about has been that my ‘matters of faith’ have certainly suffered. My work roster has meant I haven’t been to church in weeks, and I haven’t really made up for that anywhere else. When I should be relying on Christ, I’m actually wandering off looking for my own big pile of resources that are “certain to get me through this rough patch”. The results have been fairly predictable: I’m short tempered; constantly tired (sleeping poorly); highly stressed; and generally fairly unpleasant to be around.

I know some of the tools and strategies that would correct (at least some of) this behaviour, but being told what to do just makes me more irritable.

Ok, enough whining from me. If you’re the praying type, I’d appreciate a few moments of your attention. If you’re the ‘giving advice’ type, I’d appreciate you saving it up for a moment when I’m less likely to snap.

I don’t know why I’ve not noticed this before but I’ve come to realise that Santa (at the least the modern day creation rather than St Nick himself) is quite the bastard.

I don’t want to come across all anti-santa or anything, I’m not actively against the tradition, but consider this:

1. Santa ignores 90% of the known world at Christmas time. He chooses instead to only give presents to people who live in the Western world.
2. Santa is manipulative. He only giving presents to those kids he thinks are nice enough and yet often giving presents to kids who aren’t good, just because he wants to people to like him.
3. Santa favours the wealthy. He gives bigger, better, more expensive gifts to rich people.

I don’t know about you, but if Santa is real someone needs to sort him out.

Drives me nuts!

I’m blaming them for my lack of blogging over the last month… I mean, how can I spend all this time writing profound blogs on a regular basis if HostSo are going to crash the server and lose all the data?

I need security. Is there a Jesus server somewhere?

We’re about to have a Federal election, and I honestly have no idea who to vote for. Both of the major parties are fairly disappointing to say the least, and the smaller parties have been getting on my nerves for a while now as well. I don’t want to make some statement like “all pollies are liars, so what does it matter who you vote for anyway”, but at the moment I feel a bit like that.

Labor started out so strong in 2007, and I actually felt like there was a bit of hope after the Evil Empire had been defeated. But how was I to know that we were actually only at a bit of an ‘Empire Strikes Back’ moment, where everything was about to come crashing down, and all that good work was being undone by internal conflict? I should have guessed, I suppose. The Unions were never going to stand for being shoved back into the industrial realm, and then we had Kev backpedalling on climate change, and the Peter Garrett roof insulation fiasco.

…and then we got our first female PM! Which was exciting, even if she wasn’t a smooth media (“moooodia?”) type. I’m all for substance over style, policies over personality, and statements over soundbytes, but you have to admit she’s a bit embarrassing. I mean, I suppose she’s representing a large portion of our community (tuck shop ladies in outer suburban primary schools?), but on the international stage..? Kev could speak Chinese (although sometimes it was just as hard to understand him when he spoke English), so at least he had something to work with when it came to regional powerhouses. I’m just worried that on her first overseas trip to somewhere in Asia, the local government will mistake her for that other red-headed female of Australian politics over the last few years, and think that we’ve finally voted in One Nation. We’ll be at war before she gets out of the airport.

And then we’ve got big Tony over on the other side of the fence. By all accounts (in last weekend’s Herald), he’s quite a nice bloke in person, and has friends from all sides of politics. But again, I’m not certain that I want him representing me. So far he seems to be doing his best to start up “The Australian John Howard Show” tribute act, which might be popular in some circles, but doesn’t fill me with confidence. The man lied repeatedly about fairly significant issues, and used those lies to build fear which in turn won elections (yay Australia!). I don’t want to vote Liberal just to ‘punish Labor’, if it means we get three more years of the Howard legacy.

The Greens seem to have a few things going well for them, but they’re not going to actually win, and giving them more seats will just mean Bob Brown gets even more smug. If smugness was radioactive, no one would ever be able to go to Tasmania again without all their hair falling out. Bob Brown has a halflife of about 200,000 years. It’s gotten to the point where I just cannot listen to him without screaming abuse at the radio/tv/internet. It wouldn’t matter if he was promising to give me bags of cash if I could just agree with him that the sky is blue, I would have to disagree out of sheer stubbornness. Which I recognise is why I’m also a massive hypocrite, and should never nominate for public office.

The Democrats were going to “keep the bastards honest”, then had the world’s most public domestic and killed each other off before they actually achieved very much at all. Thanks folks. At least Natasha Stott Despoja wore Doc Martin boots in parliament. That showed ‘em.

In any case, I live in a safe Liberal seat, so it’s not like my vote is going to actually mean all that much. I just like the idea that I’m participating in a genuinely important act by voting. Maybe I should just vote for one of the ‘little guys’, like the “Three Day Weekend Party”. That way I could be certain that some public funds would end up in the hands of a person who doesn’t really take the whole process too seriously… oh wait, hang on…

Why can’t we just have independant candidates, who say what they actually mean, and who genuinely want to help their nation, rather than set themselves up for a great superannuation plan? Is that really too much to ask? Really?

Jesus said “There was once an orphanage that housed many children. Some orphans would find a new family in a new place if they went through the official adoption process that took many years.”

Jesus continued “One day the orphanage came under new management by evil men. One night the new managers set fire to the orphanage saying ‘we will destroy the building, kill the children and rebuild’. And there was a great and terrible fire. That night the children tried to flee the flames and seek shelter with a new family in a new place. Many children perished but some managed to escape and reached a new place of shelter that was open and spacious with many empty rooms, but the people who lived in that place said to themselves ‘Who are all these children? They have not come to us through the official adoption process. Surely they will fill up our empty rooms and spacious grounds! We must turn them back from here and ill treat them that they may warn others not to come to our land.’

So the people of that place turned some of the children around and sent them back into the fire where they perished. Others they locked in small cages for many years before also sending them back into the great fire where they too perished.”

Those standing near by were outraged by this and said “Teacher, why tell us this parable? This is a terrible and monstrous act! May the Lord bring judgment upon those wicked men and the people of that land for this injustice!”

Jesus said “Truly I tell you, you are the people of that land! You brood of vipers, you evil snakes! You enjoy this spacious land with many empty rooms!”

If you like this parable why not email it to Tony.Abbott.MP@aph.gov.au and Julia.Gillard.MP@aph.gov.au

It all started with the announcement of a 62% rise in electricity over 3 years last December. I was appalled at this, 62% is a bloody lot. So I’m thinking how the heck am I going to afford that!! My energy bill can currently be over $300 a quarter and that is hard enough to find, let alone that plus 62% which would be $486 and sometimes my bill is a fair way over the $300 mark.

I try and cut back where I can on electricity but right now I live in a house I can afford which means that I live in a much older house that’s not really great at retaining heat and I have 2 kids. The so that my kids don’t get sick I need to keep them warm at night which means running heaters in both their rooms for the entire night. (I chose the most energy efficient heaters we could afford, but still its a lot of electricity…)

So I started to thnk that I might start to struggle to meet bills a little more than normal… and then I had a thought… what about all the families out there with less income then our household?? living in houses similar or worst then ours with higher heating bills. Even if they don’t have higher heating bills, so what, whatever their electricity bill is now it will increase by 62%. Stupid.

They don’t have money to go and change appliances to versions that run on other cheaper sources or are more energy efficient.

I don’t know, maybe I missing something, but when it comes down to it, how can you increase a necessity like that by so much?! And then not increase the cost of living scale or whatever it is that increases peoples wages.

Do I also have to mention how Dubbo wants to increase the cost of water by a massive percentage as well, or the way that in 2008 they weren’t allowed to raise rates which was the first time since 2002 that there hadn’t been a rate rise!!

And they want to attract people to country towns…

Another old rant worth bringing up now is the way that they ask us to cut back on resources then increase the cost of those rescources as we aren’t using enough…

I’d like to make a suggestion, how about the use of a little forward planning… If you are going to ask us to use less of something then think about how that will effect the states/country’s income and work out what you will do to combat that, be creative too, don’t just hit the same suckers who are already living tight, or living in debt actually, just because it’s basically the easiest option.

I’m not always the best at putting words to paper, but I hope this has been clear enough.