Wow. What a storm. We just survived the craziest ever drive from Brisbane to Dalby. It rained. It poured. The old man snored… when we left college this afternoon the gutters almost kidnapped my thongs (as in footwear). A soaked walker asked to use my phone to call for a lift. You may have had enough of water for today. I haven’t. You may also have had enough beautiful timelapse photography. I haven’t.
So there.
If I was the type to create Super Apostles then John Chapman would be right at the top of my list. But he’d doubtless hate that. I love Chappo, and he frequently tops the list of “things I love about growing up in a ministry household”… Chappo is a family friend, which is splendiforous (a Chappoism).
Gordo has been posting the transcript of an interview between Chappo and Kel Richards over on his blog (part one, part two). It’s heartwarming and encouraging stuff to read the reflections of a wise saint who has lived his life pursuing God’s glory and telling people about Jesus. I highly commend them to you. Here’s a sample, where he talks about being/getting old…
“John: When you get old, you don’t become a different person. You’re the same person who was always there, only it takes you longer to do things. Why I thought I’d be able to catch up I’ve no idea. See, when you become old, you don’t become different.
One of the nice parts about living in this [retirement] village is, collectively, we’ve got an enormous amount of knowledge. If you want to know how to do something, there’s somebody here to teach you. And, that’s the nice part about living with a hundred and twenty, hundred and fifty people. Amongst us all, we’ve got a massive amount of skills. You want to learn to use the computer, the computer club’ll spend time, and they’ve got it, to do with you. If you want to play chess and board games, there’s someone who’ll play with you in the living, in the sitting room.
Kel: So if old age is just like the rest of life, then older people, even though death is approaching, don’t give any extra thought to God.
John: Don Howard* used to tell a story of a man he visited in Burwood East. And he urged this man to turn to Christ, he was fit and well. And he said Don I don’t need God.
Don said I visited him in hospital where he was lapsing in and out of consciousness. And Don said you don’t have a lot of time left, you should turn to Christ. And he said you don’t think a fit man like me is about to die do you?
Now you see, if you’ve spent a lifetime of saying no, why would you suddenly say yes? There’s no more new information to have. I’m a sinner; Christ died for me; I need to repent; I need to trust him. If I don’t believe that when I’m seventeen, there’s odds on I won’t believe it at 37.”
*Don Howard is my grandfather.
While we’re on the subject…
This is why we Christians need to think about how we use social media for Jesus.
Via Jeff Bullas
File this under “sermon illustrations” or if you don’t write sermons, under “funny stories”…
Marathon “runner” Rob Sloan was in a race on the weekend, he piked, caught the bus, and found himself ahead of the pack, so he decided to cross the finish line. He appeared to have taken third place. There was some suspicion at the time. But he flatly denied catching the spectator bus.
He lied.
“When I finished the race I was asked by the fourth person in the race: ‘Did you come third, because I don’t remember you passing us.’
“My words to him were ‘Yeah, I passed you at approximately 18 miles on the damp’, I remember because you don’t pass many people being near the front.”
The BBC has more… and another story from Digital Journey…
Funny stuff.
Phoenix Jones has been featured here before. He’s a Real Life Super Hero in Seattle. This bio is fun reading.
He was arrested last night for assault (he claims he was breaking up a fight with pepper spray). Sadly, despite speculation, he is not Mark Driscoll. He is, however, an MMA fighter named Benjamin Fodor.
Here’s one of his four fights, on YouTube (contains mixed martial arts).
I can’t figure out how he gets his hair in the costume…
Spineless Classics puts a whole book in a poster, makes a little negative space art, and sells them. I likes them a lot…
Alice in Wonderland
The Wizard of Oz
Genesis…
Feed your imagination, and feast your eyes. Why don’t we call this your dose of inspiration for the day.
Pretty brilliant. It’s just how advertising brainstorming sessions work in the real world…
Thanks Clayton for sharing on Facebook.
Perhaps inspired by the previous post, perhaps a coincidence – if you’re looking for some tricks to pull on your fixie – here are 50 “no hands” moves you can pull as you do a mainie on your pushie.
It occurred to me today that I didn’t ever post this video, which is amazing. Not that I didn’t post it. The video. It’s amazing. It’s like bike parcour. Or something.
Photographer James Mollison came up with a pretty fascinating photographic concept here. He set up a photo booth outside concerts from 62 different artists, and snapped shots of the bands’ fans. Turning them into a coffee table book called The Disciples
Here are some samples.
George Michael
Oasis
Marylin Manson
Morrisey
Via The Atlantic.
Right. I’ve been thinking a bit about ethical coffee and stuff. And about how to use this online platform for the power of good. So this is what I’ve come up with. It’s what I call a triple bottom line project, it looks after your financial wellbeing – because you get cheap coffee. It looks after your social wellbeing – because you get your caffeine fix, and it looks after other people. It’s environmentally ambivalent. Except it will result in planting more plants, and more pollination…
Huh? You’re no doubt wondering what on earth I’m talking about. I probably should have explained above…
If you purchase coffee through the St. Eutychus coffee roastery between now and Christmas – your purchase is going to do a world of good, on a small scale, for other people. Here are the details:
Some “seed” funding at work…
For every 400gm of coffee purchased through St. Eutychus between now and Christmas 2011, you will also be purchasing a batch of seeds for a third world family through Tear Australia. For every 800gm order your purchase will include a bee hive, also via Tear’s Really Useful Gift Catalogue. There is no increase in pricing to accomodate these purchases – so get in during this period to give something back with your coffee.
I’ll mail you the coffee, and the gift card (though they’re a few days off arriving in my hot little hands).
And you’ll be able to enjoy your coffee guilt free – knowing that not only is it ethically purchased, but that you’re making a difference with every sip.
I have no idea what set numbers our family’s lego collection contains. But as I start investing in a Lego collection for my own children (it’s not too early, right?) I’ll be keeping tabs on Rebrickable – which calculates what sets you can form using the sets you own. It’s like getting a whole new spaceship. You can also get schematics for user generated constructions.
You can make stuff like this Lego Gundam (a Japanese transformer type robot). You’ll need 501 pieces, spread across 155 varieties of part. But it looks doable.
