24th Christmas Eve

 

25th Christmas Day

26th Boxing Day

 

27th Too Full Day

  

Tomorrow is the last serious working day of the year. Actually that was today. Tomorrow we finish up at around noon and there is a departmental morning tea in the morning as well so it really is just a couple of hours’ work.

It has been a tiring year. Work wise things have chugged along in a relatively relentless manner. Then there were a few things in church which also took a chunk of attention and energy. A healing seminar circus, kooky practices by some of the leaders, non-communicative eldership, stressed out, burned out and overloaded board members, all lead to a stressful second half of the year for me. I was on the verge of leaving. Tress and I had talked about it and had more or less decided that it is what we would do, before a number of development made me feel that if we left, we will be contributing to the sense of unsettledness. And so we stayed and copped the tumult as did a few others.

We continued to build our lives and did things to make life as normal as possible. We built a deck on the side lawn and I got a new car. Recently too, we got a puppy which has grown a little bit and has grown on us too. He is such an integral part of the family now.

Also, notwithstanding the events at the leadership side of things, the church has been relatively ok. The home group which meets in our home has grown and has become a close knit group. We lost a member through death earlier a few months ago but he has been ill for a long time. We had become closer to him in his final months and his death affected many of us, just as his life did.

Kiddo will be in Year 11 when school starts in January. She recently passed her Grade 8 piano exams so she may not be doing any music lessons next year, except maybe giving them.

we just got back from a dinner with Tham Fuan, the pastor from Cornerstone Church in Oakleigh. Jason and family were there too (in Tham Fuan’s home).

Dinner went well, I felt at ease and at peace, and I believe he is right for ICC. The prospect of merger with Cornerstone should be given more prayers and consideration.

Christmas is now just a week away. The lawyers in my team went for a Christmas lunch yesterday. We were at the Hellenic Republic in Brunswick. It is the relatively famed restaurant owned and run by George Colambaris, he of the Master Chef TV series fame. One of the lawyers caught a glimpse of him driving away in a beemer – probably just dropped in to collect the takings. The food was very good and it was a very nice place, except that the hard surfaces all around (unadorned white washed brick wall, marble top tables, open stainless grill kitchen) made for a very noisy restaurant. Business was bustling so the decibels were well and truly up.

We started lunch late – just a bit after 2pm, and stayed till just after 4pm. We headed for home after that and en route from Melbourne Central to Blackburn station, the skies opened up and dumped a massive amount of rain – so much that when I hit Blackburn, the brolly was useless. This summer has been like this so far. Except for a stinker a few days ago when it almost hit 39 deg, it has been a relatively mild start. This morning for example it was only 10 deg when I pulled out of the driveway. It is only 23 deg max today, which has been brilliant. I hope it stays that way for the rest of the summer!

Saturday

Coffee at the Coffee Club – grocery shopping for lunch at CM and IT’s with Jessica – Kiddo at church – Home – Tress laundry and me making salad for lunch – lunch with Jessica – picked Kiddo from church – home – Chiangs’ kids at home – bathed the dog – snoozed on couch – went to church for prayer meet – got home – snoooooozed…

Sunday

I didn’t sleep in on Sunday – after letting the dog out just before 5, I watched the Villa game and got frustrated. Here was a golden opportunity to at least close the gap on Chelski and it slipped away badly. Martin O’Neil’s men did well however. I have been admiring John Collins the Villa centre back in recent games and he proved reliable again.

After the game I tried to go back to sleep but decided to go some gardening instead. The beautiful thing about this time of the year is how light it is from even just after 6am. I took the hose out, watered the back and front gardens, tidied around a little bit and took the dog out for a walk.

I came back and it was still only just after 7am. It’s amazing how much time one has when you’re up early. I made coffee and breakfast, did some quiet time and eventually made our way to church by about 9.45am.
Church was unbelievably scrappy. Announcements and miscellaneous items cropped up from all over and by the time the preacher got started it was almost 20 minutes behind. That didn’t pull him (Larry Sebastian) up though. He went the full gallop anyway – and more! When it was about 12.45pm (45 minutes over) I simply left the hall while Larry was going on about playing some tunes on the keyboard. Kiddo had a gig to teach music at 1.30pm and we just had to go. I always have difficulties with preachers who are undisciplined with time. They should have more respect for everyone’s time. At the very least, break it up the sermon into one or more parts and provide people with the option to leave after say the main part(s). When I walked away, I saw a few others doing the same and it just isn’t right for a speaker to be so presumptuous and ill-disciplined.

We dropped kiddo off at the gig, went to do some quick grocery shopping, picked her up and then decided it has been such a long day we needed coffee. We went to the Coffee Club at the Forest Hill Chase, which is our local. Kiddo then went and looked at some laptops and a model we have been eyeing was on special, with some $300 taken off (the Dell Studio 15) so we got that one.

We came home and I set up the laptop together with kiddo while Tress went about doing research for our planned trip to Adelaide in January. Kiddo then had a church friend pick her up to get to a dinner – the worship team dinner which I had concerns about (the cost). Tress and I went to a couple’s home for our dinner. This couple has a Golden Retriever so we brought our dog along for some socialising. The couple’s mum (hers) cooked Hokkien noodles. Food was great, company was just as good and Scruffi got to disturb the GR, so it was a good night out. Tress and I came back to Bruce Willis’ “Hostage” and we watched that while waiting for Kiddo to get back. She got back about 10.45pm, I have been dosing off on the couch before that and by 11pm after a brief catch up in kiddo’s room for a quick chat about how the dinner went, we ended the weekend.

Post modernism is an illness. It is to be gotten rid off as quickly as possible. I believe it brings instability and confusion. There is almost always, a right and a wrong in any given situation. It is never a question of supporting everyone all the time. It is a question of whether something is right or wrong. If it is wrong, call it out and think about fixing it and well… fix it.

Being supportive doesn’t fix a wrong. It glosses over it and tolerates it. I refer not to someone tripping up and falling or making a mistake, although that may have been the cause of the wrong. The support can and must come after stating that it was a wrong. After someone calls out that wrong, any support which follows will then be more substantive and meaningful. To allow a wrong to remain on the basis that to call it out will be to discourage parties involved, means we become less and less sensitive to right and wrong and worry only about someone’s feelings and opinions. By all means listen and weigh up feelings and opinions but the call as to whether a situation is right or wrong, must be made.

It is wrong to be lavish with other people’s money. It is wrong for a church ministry team to have a lavish meal on church account. It is wrong for that ministry team to expect the church to foot a lavish meal. It is wrong to not give the matter any thoughts. Be lavish if that’s what brings you happiness, just do it on your own expense. On our own, we are lavish with a meal maybe 1-2 times a year. The reason is simple – the expense hurts. That pain should be the same – indeed even more – if it is church money.

If it is wrong for a ministry team to have a lavish meal on church account, not calling out the wrong is not a question of showing support to the team. Support for the team mustn’t be at the expense of our position of trust and responsibility with church money. When a wrong is spotted, it should be fixed.

I just caught a quick glimpse of that breaking news. OC Phang the General Manager of the Port Klang Free Trade Zone (PKFZ), has been arrested and was going to be charged today. Accompanying her is Bernard Tan the architect and the CEO of the main contractor, Steven Abok.

After all these years of allowing the PKFZ scandal to brew and simmer away, drastic action is suddenly taken. Call me a cynic but the timing is perfectly synchronised with Najib Razak’s deafening silence to PI Bala’s return and revelations, dont you think?

PI Bala revealed information which points accusing fingers at Najib Razak, suggesting he has a lot more to do with the murder of Altantuya than he lead the Malaysian public to believe. Najib is resolutely quiet. Guilt-ridden silence. He needs something to get Bala off the headlines. Easy – get OC Phang and her colleagues arrested and charged. Looks good, doesnt it? He appears to act in the interest of justice and accountability by bringing the dramatis personae of the PKFZ scandal to book. At the same time, he gets a breather from those Bala revelations.

Smart move huh?

Last Friday kiddo and I trammed down St Kilda Road together in the morning. We past a low and long concrete sign, about 15 feet long, which said “COPENHAGEN”. I guess it is a reminder to passers by, of what is happening in a very cold Denmark this week. It isn’t the wisest choice for a climate change and global warming summit. Delegates would be less inclined to think global warming is an issue, in a wintery Scandinavian city in December.

Majority of Australia has been chest beating and lamenting that it needed to act on global warming and climate change before it loses icons like the Great Barrier Reef, the Kakadu and the Tasmanian wilderness and before devastating drought pulverises Australia in general. So Rudd and Penny came up with the emissions trading scheme (ETS) – a carbon trading scheme which basically touch us for more taxes. Forget about any trading scheme – we will basically be taxed even more, and for what? For all the chest beating and self righteous forking out Australia will not make a dent in pushing back global warming, if indeed it is man made in the first place. Not especially if the biggest polluters would have been exempt under the scheme anyway. Coal miners will be able to continue mining and exporting their products and be exempt under the scheme.

But even if we are happy to pay higher prices for all of our goods and services and paralyse our industries, are we ever going to make any difference? Wouldn’t China, India, Brazil and the US for example, continue to choke this planet by their billions? Like many issues in the past, Australia appears to be punching way above our weight, except this time around it is going to cost us dearly.

It will be like I am paying for the mess on my street and in the park across the road when my home is one of the smallest houses on our street and I hardly contribute to the mess whereas the huge houses up the road who mess the street and park heaps more than I do, refuses to pay for the clean up. Even if I am generous enough to pay for it, surely I must make sure there is a way for these huge houses to stop messing up? Otherwise, I would be burning a hole in my pockets for absolutely no benefit. Is Rudd that shallow? Surely he cant miss the fact that while the ETS can accord him temporary bragging rights, world leaders are really going to see him as a goose instead?