Don't Oppress me

You shall not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.

- Exodus 23:9

Spring

Sunday morning I got up before Ella for the first time in a long time.

I ate a banana and left only to realize I forgot my cell phone. I came back and got it with just enough time to pick up several guys in Port Kembla. There were five of us from the Port Kembla Men's Group offering our services at Spring into Corrimal, an event that attracted 30,000 people. Here's a photo I took about 9 AM:


We set up a make shift coffee shop next to a food stall at the top of a car boot sale. Here's a photo of the car boot sale:
Here's a photo of the coffee shop. The two guys to the right and little dog are with the men's group.

After setting the coffee up I took a tour of the car boot sale and snatched up a wicked grab. I bought a Kathmandu baby carrier backpack for $40 AUD. New would probably cost $200 AUD. It's really as good as new. Ella hated getting put in it the first time. But once she realized how fun it was to ride in, she looks forward to it with great zeal.

When I found the backpack I only had $20 in my wallet. I gave it to the woman selling it and said I'll be back. I got a loan from the men's group to pay the rest. At the end of the day I spoke with the woman's husband. They were incredibly proud they were giving/selling the backpack to a good home. They asked if I thought we might take it on a trek. I said, "Oh, yes!" I asked them if they were interested in a Food Swap at North Wollongong garden. They were highly interested. I gave them my e-mail address.

Coffee, Chess, and Relay for Life

Yesterday . . .

I showed up to Port Kembla Men's Group and was quickly recruited to make coffee for anyone. Three men in the group had been telling/showing me how to do it right over the past two weeks. On Monday last week I went with A. to serve coffee in Berkeley. He showed me how to steam the milk and that was my job the whole time besides clean up, etc. (Worthy of note: I burned my arm on the coffee machine when I picked it up hot.)

Anyway, yesterday the group needed me to make coffee because the two main baristas were preoccupied and fully busy. One was preparing and cooking chooks/chickens, pizzas, and bread in a built wood-fire oven. That was lunch for the men's group and at the same time practice for a wedding reception coming up. The other barista was out back painting and doing some work on his car to get it ready for rego/registration. The back up barista is in Ireland and traveling abroad for the next several months. So, I got my chance to practice.

One thing I've realized is that often baristas in coffee shops have served me overheated milk in cappuccinos. Also, I like the flavor of coffee, which means it's got to have the creme (sp?), all the flavor and oils in the beans besides the caffeine. So, the coffee that has a medium light brown, smooth color and texture is lovable while instant type coffee has become for me "unloved". (The way you get this lovable coffee is by adjusting the coarse-/fineness of the grounds. Eg, if you get the grounds too coarse, the hot water will run quickly past them and only pick up caffeine and some of the flavors and come out blackish. You really want the hot water to pick up as many delicious flavors as possible, running in a slow, medium light brown stream. If you can ignore the sugar and see the espresso around the cream/milk sun pictured, you'll see what I'm talking about.) There is definitely more to good coffee than bitterness, caffeine, and wasted milk.


One more note about yesterday . . . P., a Macedonian, beat me royally in outdoor chess. Apparently, I play too slowly in addition to stupidly. But P. and the rest of the advisors were kind enough not to call me "stupid," just "slow". So that's okay. One 36-year old told me I should play more aggressively when I'm down to just my king, queen, a rook, and two pawns. It sure wouldn't have hurt. That's a lot like life. When you're down and out or stuck, don't be proud or timid; make drastic changes. Or like Jesus said, if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out. It'd be better to thrive with one eye than to dwindle with two.

I think it was yesterday, too, that I registered for Relay for Life, a cancer support walk-a-thon sort of thing.

A Creative Day

Today . . .

Noah's Ark = shark

That's how we talk here in Australia. Well, at least with some of the guys who have to work at bushcare until they retire. We were piling and binding Elephant grass (red raw splintered hands to prove it) so it can be carried to a truck and mulched up next week. I was in various conversations with one of the guys, T., all day. We looked into the sky and noticed people jumping out of planes and parachuting down. I said, "I'd do that, but it's probably too expensive." He said, "Yeah, last I heard, it was around $600 AUD." Then, we got to talking about scuba diving in the ocean deep and how terrifying that would be. T. said, "Yeah, don't want to deal with Noah's ark." I said, "What?" He said, "You know, shark. It's how we talk."

I guess when it's obvious from the context what everyone is thinking, you don't need to use the actual word. Just rhyme it with something quite unrelated. So, bone = phone.

I got some fresh mint today and shared a leaf with Ella. We enjoyed taking turns smelling it and nibbling little bits off.

Then, I took Ella for a walk down a couple streets in our neighborhood. I stopped a couple of times to pray for God to bless the people I was seeing. I realized it made even more sense to pray for God to bless me by making me a person of integrity. I picked up a piece of rusty metal for our distressed lemon tree that needs a pick-me-up. We looked up into a Coral tree filled with Lorikeets. We walked down the hill and admired the sensory garden in a front yard. The people on the veranda there came up to the fence to admire Ella. We talked for quite a while. Apparently the man (who doesn't actually live there) was hit by a train conducted by a drunk man decades ago. None of that incident has every been reported in the news because it would've looked bad for the government and CityRail. Also of interest to me is that the home owner never had a plan for the front garden! She just went out one day and planted a few flowers here. Another day she planted some there. And now it's just a beautifully simple garden in the midst of a broken-looking neighborhood with kids tearing around on unregistered motor bikes.

I learned-or was reminded of-three things today:

Communication is creative

My daughter is in the process of being created and so am I

Creativity is beautiful no matter what surrounds it

A Skeptic

Yesterday, while watering the 1,000 native trees, bushes, and grasses planted by the community two Sundays ago . . . I heard in a Scottish sounding German accent something like this:

All religions have one thing in common: THEY WANT YOUR MONEY . . . the Bible's been translated and copied so many times IT'S NOTHING LIKE THE ORIGINAL . . . Oh, Jesus, HE HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE RELIGIOUS LEADERS . . . today the the money changers that Jesus would be throwing out--THEY'RE THE ONES TRYING TO GET YOUR MONEY

That's just a few excerpts. He gave lots of reasons to reject religion and too much thinking about the hereafter and heaven. To be fair, the guy was very tolerant of us (being Christians). I was glad to hear his opinion. I didn't need his tolerance, but he assured us several times:

Hey, if you find a religion that works for you, that's great! You should practice that. I just think you should think for yourself and ask lots of questions.

I tried to assure him that I had asked lots of questions and still do. In fact, I've asked all the ones related to his grand skeptical discourse, (though I've didn't ask them all in the same half hour).

The conversation, though mostly one-sided, didn't discourage me at all. We thought, "What a blessing to receive such clear thinking from someone in spite of the fact he must have thought we disagreed with him!"

At several points he was telling me about Freud and Marx and "the opium of the masses" kind of thinking. I told him I sort of agreed:

I said, "Yeah, Freud and Marx made some good observations about some varieties of religion, but have you heard of William James? He--"

Then, I was cut off. "No, I haven't heard of him--" And then, since he hadn't heard of Williams James, he went on sharing all his skepticism with me (again), mostly relating to the Catholic Church (even though I'm no Catholic). Part of his skepticism may have resulted from his experiences growing up in Nuremburg, Germany. You know, that's where they had all those trials after the Nazis . . . I don't even want to talk about that.

I told him, "Well, even though I'm young, I believe I've experienced a lot of the ugliness the world has to offer, but I still have hope." Again, I couldn't get much more of an opinion out than that.

I most appreciate him telling me how to water the dry plants on the hillside more efficiently. And I don't mind him lumping my faith in with weak and naive varieties. And I don't need his tolerance. My faith is tougher than that. Or maybe I should say, my God is tougher than religion no matter which variety you choose to pick on.

It was a positive experience.

A New Start

I've been taking about a month making up my mind to make a new start. I want to cut out sweets from my diet and be more consistent working out with my Kettlebell. It seems every time I say to myself, "Okay, today's the day I'm going cold turkey on any sweet thing besides fruit," someone says, "Well, I made some cookies. Would you like one?" I eat one (or two or more) every time.

I don't feel too bad about today, though. I had two fried eggs (over-easy) with carrot and parsley for breakfast. I took Ella on a walk and was exhausted. I got back and took a nap. For lunch I had refried beans and cheese and coriander/cilantro . . . and two small choc chip muffins. I snacked on about a fourth of a banana. I did a legitimate Kettlebell workout, three rounds. I cooked dinner: porterhouse steak marinated in red wine and rosemary and thyme from our backyard; a veggie medley: spinach grown at Unanderra community garden, tomatoes, carrot, mild garlic, and red capsicum/bell pepper seasoned with thyme; and red potatoes in dill and olive oil. Beautiful! Then, Nicole made delicious choc chip cookies and I ate several.

My Kettlebell workout:

SWINGS: standard two-hand swings with 25 kg KB
ABS: mountain climbers and other ab exercises
PRESSES: two rounds lying down and one standing up with the KB
SQUATS: two handed
PULLUPS: three sets of 7 reps each

I'm taking a four-week break from climbing for various reasons. I want to stay consistent with the KB until I get back into climbing.

I remember Jesus saying about his followers: "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." But I often feel like, "My body is willing, but my will is week." I know that my body gets rewarded for taking on healthy pleasures even when there's a bit of pain involved, but the hardest part by far is getting motivated. One thing that helps is when Nicole says, "You should go for a run or something; your legs are getting soft." That type thing is very motivating. Another thing is when I have a workout partner. Lately, my main rock climbing partner moved to Qatar so, . . . I wanted to take a break from climbing rather than just let my climbing fizzle out without that accountability factor. When I start back I'll seek a new consistent partner.

Probably the biggest motivating factor is my daughter. I'm 34 and I realize I really want to be able to keep up with my children when they're teenagers at least. I want to be a leader in health in such a way that they'll enjoy the healthy pleasures. Health is such an amazing gift that I want to revel in it rather than treat it with disdain and sloth.

“Lemons for free?”

True story. A fortunate woman living in Wollongong bought a house. From a vibrant lemon tree in the yard fell more than enough lemons. The woman didn’t like lemons so she put them in her garden waste bin. There were enough lemons that the garbage men noticed and reported the incident.

Council told the woman, “You can’t put your lemons in there.”
The woman said, “But there’s not enough room in my regular rubbish bin.”
They said, “Why don’t you eat the lemons?”
“I don’t like lemons.”
“Share them.”
“Give them away for free? No way.”
“I'm sorry? . . . I thought you said you don’t like lemons.”
“Yes, but I’m not giving them away for free when they're sold at the market for so much a kilo.”
“[Sigh] Why don’t you take them down to the corner and sell them then. You can’t put them in your garden waste bin. That’s for non-food garden waste like weeds and branches.”

I pray the woman didn’t cut the tree down as one last spiteful resort.

Did you know that many trees and bushes share root systems? If you poison a large Camphor Laurel tree, for example, you may see another tree fall dead 100 meters away! So if I treat my neighbor with poison (or stinginess), how do I know it won’t also poison or devour who and what I know and love?

Did you know that your neighbor is not only the one living on your block? Even God is a neighbor. As unknown as God typically is, God treats every neighbor with free sunshine and rain along with the breath of life. What a great neighbor!

Say I have a lemon tree in my backyard, not of my own planting, along with a home which I can afford because I've been welcomed into my particular socio-economic class. Am I the kind of neighbor that accepts these gifts thanklessly? Am I the kind of neighbor who hordes? Do I poison or steal? I’m trying to be honest about these questions this year so any neighbors can be healed and my own lemon tree, which I could never earn, can bless others.