The Life You Can Save

Peter Singer has a new book: The The Life You Can Save and accompaning website I heard him interviewed on Point of Inquiry and Late Night Live - Phillip Adams. His challenge to the world is to end world poverty and he's done the math to work out how much we need to give away to make it happen. The good news for people stingy like me is that it's hardly anything especiially for people earning a wage like mine. It's just one percent. If you think you can do that why not sign the pledge on the website, I was only the 481st person to do so.

What's Wrong With Me? - Alcohol

What does it take for a complete stranger to ask what's "wrong with you?" Chastising your kids in public, nearly causing a car accident? No, alcohol.

I was at a wedding recently in tropical Queensland, the day was swelteringly hot and it was the break between the wedding and reception. After having a beer with some other guest I got myself a water only to be distainfully asked "wrong with you?" by a fellow guest who was holding a beer. What was wrong with me was that I was not just drinking alcohol but I was drinking water as well.

Working in a drug and alcohol agency I get to see a lot of negatives of alcohol. No drug does more damage than alcohol, perhaps if we viewed using it as a privilege, like native Americans with peyote, we might have more respect for it, both the pleasure it can give and the damage it can do.

I’m PODing

Well it's now official. I’m working out if I should become a Pastor / Minister type person. I'm doing this via the Uniting Church's Period of Discernment (POD). Why? Well, for as long as I can remember I have felt some kind of call to ministry. My calling is not a clear once off call from God. Instead, my call is more like a ringing in my ears I have had since I was a teenager. For a long time I had always thought that all Christians felt the same call to ministry as I have done. The “ringing in my ears” comes and goes as I move in and out of where I sense God is calling me. At the moment the ringing is loud and the “Period of Discernment” will be an opportunity to see where God might take me within the Uniting Church.

Jump! You...

In the current economic climate of gloom and doom there are occasional things that just make me laugh. This photo taken on Wall Street was is one of them. I found it on the Facebook group the "Society for the Appreciation of Pictures of Stockbrokers In Visible Pain"