Creation unfinished?

Last week the ABC reported that Australia was on the move .. drifting north at 3cm a year and west at a lesser rate.  As a result a new set of GPS coordinates are to be issued next year that will be corrected for the year 2020.  This is necessary, we are told, because smart technology such as driver-less cars must be more accurate.  Using current data, such a car could end up driving in the wrong lane of traffic!

Other evidence of an earth still evolving is the shift in the magnetic poles.  Magnetic north has moved at least one degree east in my life time.  Within a thousand years it is expected that the poles will reverse, and compasses will point south instead of north!

I recall when I visited the dinosaur exhibit near Winton last year that we were told that the area at the time of the dinosaurs had actually been at about the latitude of today's Tasmania. Now that is quite a notable drift north over 90 million years!

All of which points to our earth being a dynamic, ever-changing planet.  Add to that the many changes to the eco-system over the centuries and the progress of human civilisation (about which one can argue) and one can only wonder what sort of world will be here a few thousand years hence?

Yes, the Bible tells the story of God creating all that is: and says that He rested on the seventh day.  Note, not that he had finished!  Indeed the scriptures show God very much at work since His rest day  trying to keep the human race on track in accordance with His creative plan.  Which reminds me that I too am still an unfinished product!  

Bullies, bullies eveywhere

Having enjoyed Roddy Doyle's novels about growing up in impoverished Ireland, I was drawn to see a film of the same genre, Sing Street, set around the still-existing Christian Brothers' college in Synge Street, Dublin.

Fifteen year old Conor is a new boy at the school, and quickly subjected to bullying by tough fellow students and the headmaster, Brother Baxter.  Mentored by his elder brother in their dysfunctional family, Conor refuses to be cowered, and goes on to form a riff band with an unlikely group of classmates.  The story is light-hearted and the music enjoyable.  Eventually the group gets to do a gig at the school's prom -- and their farewell song is dedicated "to the Christian Brothers and all the other bullies you have known", and has the lyrics "the bigger they are, the harder they fall".

No far cry from that teenage penitentiary have been the distressing revelations of present-day abusive bullying in NT and other juvenile detention centres, especially of indigenous youth.  And schools across the nation have to deal with peer bullying and rampant online torment that results too often in youth suicide.  But it's not just the kids.  Reports of workplace bullying, even by politicians, are regularly seen in our news media.

The causes of this epidemic are complex and of no easy solution.  But certainly we need a greater awareness of it, and a sensitivity to those who we may suspect are victims and in need of support.  And I guess no harm in looking at out own behaviour towards others to be sure we don't ever succumb to lording it over them in any way.

Caleb's Crossing

I have just finished Geraldine Brook's novel Caleb's Crossing -- a very thought-provoking read.

Historically, Caleb was the first Native-American to graduate from Harvard University in the 1660's.  He came from the Martha's Vineyard area, having been converted to Christianity by a more liberal Pilgrim missionary who had broken away from the original Massachusetts foundation.

But the novel isn't really about Caleb.  The scribe is Bethia, daughter of the missionary, who struggles to free herself from the puritanical restrictions that bind womenfolk to child-raising and the kitchen.  By devious means she educates herself in scripture, languages and culture, refusing to accept that religion has any right to limit women's dignity or freedom.  Bethia breaks free and in the end shows that marriage and education can enrich each other.

That was nearly 400 years ago.  But still today countless women live under the same restrictions, often imposed in the name of religion.  And not just those subject to the Taliban.  Even here in our local communities we see women living under the strictures of a cultural baggage that has no place here.  But there are signs of hope:  a visit to the UQ campus reveals many scarfed women from overseas backgrounds enjoying the joy and freedom that education brings.

Flying high

Yesterday a close friend headed off overseas on a holiday.  Mid-morning I called up a flight tracking program on my computer out of curiosity to see where he was just then.  And yes, a little dot on the world map informed me that he was overhead Broome at 32000 feet and travelling at 496 knots!  I opened Google Earth, zoomed in, and lo!  I had the same view he would just then have been seeing outside the window of his Boeing 777.

The marvels of technology that let us not only know where others are, but even what they are seeing.  It can be somewhat frightening in terms of our privacy as we see what the explosion of CCTV and other 'spying' gadgets let governments and others know about us.  

But for all that, we can't discover what the other is thinking, feeling, planning or fearing.  That lies hidden from our technology.  But not from God.   Scripture tells us that He knows everything about everyone of the 7.4 billion of us alive today -- "But not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it." (Mt 10:29)  

Is that even possible?? Faith certainly makes demands on our limited intelligence and will.

A visit to IKEA

Today I visited one of Brisbane's two IKEA stores -- a mammoth two-floored warehouse at Springwood. It is cunningly designed like a maze, so that you must walk the entire length and breadth of the store before you can escape!

I couldn't help but think of Socrates, that ancient Greek philosopher, who loved to visit the marketplace. When asked why, since he lived very abstemiously, he replied: “I love to go there and discover how many things I am perfectly happy without.”

Surely IKEA, and similar establishments, are cathedrals to our modern day religion of consumerism.  Here on display are enough goods of every kind to clothe and house a goodly portion of the world's homeless and impoverished.  Instead they sit there unused, for the most part "things I am perfectly happy without". 

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