The Kardia Remark
“Awake, O north wind, And come, O south!”Archive for May, 2009
Twisted manners
I had a weird day today – people seemed to be saying all the wrong things when they showed manners to each other.
For example, one guy left the door open for me as I was walking out and he muttered, “Sorry.”
Then I made the same mistake, except the opposite pretty much. I stepped through a door, cutting off someone else ont their way through, and I said ,”Thanks.”
Maybe I’m just too observant of etiquette.
But on another note, it’s my birthday tomorrow! And we’re having nice home-made pumpkin soup tonight! 
The Forgotten Weapon
There is a weapon the Enemy uses against us day after day, often without us even noticing – a power many of us may have once known he had and been able to guard against, but which many have forgotten or dismissed.
It is a weapon he fires against all, a weapon every person must confront whether they acknowledge it was the Enemy who used it or not. The weapon was passed into his possession some time ago, when man & woman fell from their perfection into darkness.
The weapon is us – our essence, our core, and as I like to describe it, our heart.
Some would not call it a weapon, as it implies the Enemy created it. But let me say transparently that I use the term ‘weapon’ to mean an instrument that can and has been used for harm or control over us, and that has not at all been created by the Enemy – merely used by him.
Let me explain how it is used: at some points in any person’s life, tragedies occur, no matter how great or small they appear. Scars are inflicted upon us, having mass implications for the rest of our lives. I’m not meaning anything necessarily physical (though in some cases physical harm is involved), but a scar against our core.
I’ll give an example:
8-year-old Billy heads home from school one Autumn day, excited about the after-school piano lessons his teacher talked said would be starting soon. He’d seen his older sisters play piano at home, and had always wanted to be able to play as well as them.
He runs in the door, flings his school bag off, and runs to the backyard shed, where he finds his dad. ”Dad, guess what?” He shouts excitedly. “Mrs. Taylor’s teaching piano lessons! Can I go, Dad? Please?” He looks up at his Dad, his little heart beating excitedly.
And Dad looks down with a humiliated expression on his face, and says, “Piano lessons? Why would you want to do something as faggy as that?”
Billy grew up to be a football player, never to touch a piano or express his passion ever again.
This is just an example, and I’m certainly not trying to make any generalizations here. We all experience these sorts of scars in different ways and at different stages of life. Some people are merely scratched by the Enemy in their youth, and are truly scarred in their adult life (I use the word ‘merely’ loosely – all attacks by Satan are tragic).
But God wants to redeem our core, our hearts. He fights the Enemy on a day by day basis, and as much as the Enemy might want to make us think otherwise, God wants to fight for us… and with us.
But more on that later.
My focus here is that we’ve forgotten the Enemy meddles with hearts. We’ve forgotten that the Enemy not only works against us on a daily basis within us and outside us, but that he inflicts damage that can impede us for a lifetime.
And not just our passions or our occupational future. People are gagged, abused, and broken. They are, metaphorically, kicked around, beaten, stabbed, burnt, tortured and imprisoned.
But there is still hope.
I use the word 'heart' to mean our core.
The Hundred-and-Eight Year Shame
Today, I’m mourning the failure of a tradition older than myself to transmit onto it’s children – a tradition that surely would have brought many constructive advantages to this land, as well as satisfying less essential needs.
One-hundred-and-eight years, four months and three days ago, a tradition that should have been an heirloom from a mother to its child was not passed on. I’m speaking of the rowdy, good-humoured British parliamentary manners that the Commonwealth of Australia’s Houses of Parliament never inherited.
In my politically-biased view, key demonstrators of this legislative semi-casualness are the former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and current Leader of the Opposition, David Cameron. Take a look at this debate from June last year, concerning a possible second vote for the Republic of Ireland on the EU Treaty of Lisbon after they initially voted “no”:
Or Margaret Thatcher’s statement in October 1990 to the House of Commons regarding the European Council meeting at Rome:
And this is probably the closest Australia gets:
I mean, how much more would kids be interested in Parliament if it had more humour?
Maybe I’m just a supernerd… 
The British House of Commons, equivalent to the Australian House of Representatives
Bagels
I sat down to enjoy some toasted buttered bagels today, and then remembered a wise saying instructed to me by an old friend…
Benny the Bull is one of Dora the Explorer's companions in the children's television series
“It’s round like a giant donut!”
- Benny the Bull, Dora the Explorer: The Pirate Play
Ok, so not so wise, not so old, and not so much my friend (I’ve practically memorized The Pirate Play from all the times my little sister’s watched it – it’ll drive you insane if you watch too much!). Benny wasn’t even talking about bagels in this instance, but that’s beside the point!
The point is… well, there isn’t a point really. Hang on, I’ll make one up.
Ahah! The point is that so often we associate appearances with character – style with substance. We identify objects and people by what they look like. For example:
- “That guy with the mohawk.”
- “That little red book.”
- “That round thing like a giant donut.”
Yet we know that a person is more than their looks. As much as we might recognize a person by certain physical features of them, we still see them as more than that - or should, at least. We should continue to work toward identifying a person by their heart (meaning their ‘core’), not by their face value, no pun intended.
Well, that was a more meaningful message than I originally intended!
A bagel
Debating about debating heats up
Good to see some debate actually happening about this ‘quasi-religion’, as Barnaby Joyce calls it. It’s time we cleared up the facts on the global environment:
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s2551185.htm (it’s at about 41:15, if you don’t have time to watch the whole thing – make sure you catch Senator Joyce’s comments)
I find it interesting that the GW-believers involved in this debate seem to melt away from arguing with facts as soon as Mr. Joyce voices opposition. In fact, we hear the Greens Senator jumping straight to how Australia should fight the alleged crisis without actually establishing it exists.
Also, it’s even more interesting that Mr. Garrett, the Environment Minister, shys away from standing up for the ‘little guys’ as his party purports to do, instead omming on about this unconfirmed and dictatorial set of supposed facts.
The way Hanson-Young goes on about the ‘new’ way rings alarm bells for me – I have a suspicion this mythical problem may lead to less sovereignty for many nations in favour of a united response. In other words, a new world order.
Greens, ALP, Nationals
