DON'T ASK HIM ABOUT THE CLIMATE

GOD KNOWS WHAT IT ALL MEANS

BRILLIANT MUSIC FROM AUSTRALIA

Treat yourself to this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NilHdbxQZ7Q to see and hear oud virtuoso Joseph Tawadros and friends making fabulous music. Then maybe http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEM-ieW-ECw&feature=related

NOT AS EASY AS PUSHING A BUTTON

Not that simple, is it? You can’t just push a button and, bingo, prayer happens. The picture is not meant to suggest that sort of simplicity, but it is meant as a helpful idea.
The spiritual life is essentially our response to the constant flowing of God’s grace in our lives. Prayer is our conscious opening of our souls to that grace and responding to it. We are told to pray constantly, but we are all imperfect and forgetful. We need to constantly remind ourselves to be prayerfully open to the Spirit.
That’s where the button idea comes in. It is a time-lag or fader button. You might enter a dark apartment block at night and push such a button to turn on the lights. If you just watch the button you will see it slowly come back out and the lights go off, but of course the idea is to move to your apartment before the lights go off.
The prayer-reminder button works something like that. God’s grace is there for us constantly, but when we “fade to off” we need to push our internal reminder button to consciously, prayerfully “reconnect” with the energy supply for our journey.
If you like this “reminder button” idea, please tell someone else about it.

SAY G'DAY TO KOALA KEV

Photogenic fellow, isn't he? Kev lives on an idyllic rural property in northern NSW, where he has got to be something of a family friend.

GAIA IS NO LAUGHING MATTER

Here’s another shot of Norio Takamiya’s wonderful sculptured echidna.
There are many interesting things about echidnas.
One fact is that this monotreme mammal of Australia and New Guinea is named after a monster from Greek mythology.
The mythological Echidna was said to be the daughter of Gaia, and that’s fascinating in the context of the Australian carbon dioxide tax debate.
Funnily enough, as an echidna needs to be able to survive underground, it can tolerate low levels of oxygen and high levels of – yes, you guessed it – carbon dioxide.
Also funnily enough, the Australian Climate Commissioner, Professor Tim Flannery, the noted climate alarmist, is also a prominent Gaia enthusiast.
Flannery once predicted Earth would soon come to life in the form of Gaia.
And he has been reported saying: “Once that occurs, then the Gaia of the ancient Greeks really will exist. This planet, this Gaia, will have acquired a brain and a nervous system. That will make it act as a living animal, a living organism, at some sort of level."
And, quite seriously folks, “Well Gaia is our Earth, this extraordinary living organism of ours that we’re all part of and just breathing now, talking we are plugged into Gaia aren’t we? We are, we’re taking the atmosphere into our bodies, we’re changing its chemical composition and we’re exhaling it. And it’s life that makes the atmosphere what it is, that’s a very important aspect of Gaia you know. Gaia is life working as a whole to maintain the atmosphere as it is, so that life can go on. So, Gaia I think is saying to us ‘it’s time you took control’.”
Personally, this Earthling would rather watch an echidna than pay much attention to anything Tim Flannery says.

WATCH THEM AND FROWN IF YOU CAN

Recent great delight for me was discovering Michel Camilo and Hiromi Uehara. Click on their names for a taste of genius. Michel and his five friends will let the light in. Hiromi is equally amazing. Why these discoveries took me so long I will never know. Don’t miss your chance.