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Trip city.

Cracks me up how times have changed – So this is what it was like to be a teacher in the good old ‘Anne of Avonlea’ days…  How romantic.

Rules For Teachers 1915

1. You will not marry during the term of your contract.

2. You are not to keep company with men.

3. You must be home between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. unless attending a school function.

4. You may not loiter downtown in ice cream stores.

5. You may not travel beyond city limits unless you have the permission of the chairman of the board.

6. You may not ride in a carriage or automobile with any man unless he is your father or brother.

7. You may not smoke cigarettes.

8. You may not dress in bright colors.

9. You may under no circumstances dye your hair.

10. You must wear at least two petticoats.

11. Your dresses must not be any shorter than two inches above the ankle.

12. To keep the school room neat and clean, you must:
- sweep the floor at least once daily
- scrub the floor at least once a week with hot, soapy water
- clean the blackboards at least once a day
- start the fire at 7 a.m. so the room will be warm by 8 a.m.

(Source: Old Sacramento Schoolhouse Museum)

You don’t know me, but I feel I know you – and somehow connect on a deep level.  I relate.

This is just a short note to say Thank you.

Thank you for making me smile. Thank you for providing a ray of sunshine to otherwise dreary days.  You are an inspiration.  Such sincerity, such earnestness, such perseverance to the bitter end.  Your ingenuity was beyond your time… maybe too far ahead.  I mean – Who else would think of stringing ‘Christ The Lord Is Risen Today’ with ‘That’s Amore’?

I don’t laugh at you, I laugh with you… again and again.  They say laughter is the best medicine… so thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Symon Drake

Once again, the world screamed foul and unanimously condemned Israel for its actions fueling anti-Israel sentiment amongst the masses… emotional outbursts, protests, riots, anger, hate.

With this in mind I wish to ask us some questions…

Why are we so quick to believe everything we see and hear?

Why do certain sectors of global society hate Israel so much?

Now, the real truth surfaces (see video below), but as history proves time and time again, the damage has been done, and antisemitism has had it’s booster shot.

Funny, how the media moguls never retract their damning news-flashes, and what we should be seeing on the front-page headlines are only seen in insignificant, but intelligent publications and blogs .

Photo: Muhammad Mahdi Karim

We sang vintage chorus’s with great gusto (helped along by a piano accordion) had yarns and laughs and listened to amazing stories (like hiding-from-Nazis-in-wartime-Holland).

We were sad to leave, but eventually had to (laden with gifts and cake).

Very good times indeed.

As a kid I never spent much time with Old Folk — and to be honest, I was a bit scared of them.  Call me a slow learner but nowadays I’ve realised a priceless truth:

Old Folk are just like us ‘young folk’… only older.

Yep… I must declare that Old Folk Rock! (Especially the happy ones that love the Lord and laugh at my jokes.)

I’ve been unicycling for a week. I’m up and going, starting to turn, can free-mount every now and then.

I tell everyone I’m doing it to stay fit, trim and to rediscover the washboard hiding in the mono-ab somewhere, but perhaps its just that I really am a clown.

I can tell you’re guffawing – but don’t pass judgment until you’ve viewed the clip below. I’m not that fond of pirouettes either, but I do think you will be impressed. Even more so, when you understand firsthand the skill needed for pulling off something like this.

Anyway – I didn’t even know Sir Francis was a man of faith until today, when I heard a prayer of his.

A brief history lesson:

Francis Drake was an adventurer and essentially a legal pirate (hero of the English, arch-villain of the Spaniards).  He wrote this prayer as he departed Portsmouth to raid Spanish gold on the west coast of South America.  He eventually returned to England (the long way – via circumnavigation) with loot worth over a half million pounds sterling, and received his Knighthood for it.

Sir Francis Drake’s Prayer (1577)

Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.Disturb us, Lord, when
with the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wilder seas
Where storms will show Your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.

Pretty awesome great great great+ uncle if you ask me

Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession. (Psalm 2:8)

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. You will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)

Recently however I’ve been hearing an interesting update on the fact: Not only is New Zealand the ‘uttermost part of the earth’ concerning Israel, but that if one would dig a hole in Jerusalem, bore through the center of the earth, and keep digging, that they would come out almost in Whangarei, Northland, New Zealand. Exciting stuff to say the least, especially if you live there and are aware of the awesome revival prophecies regarding NZ’s North.

Perhaps I’m getting a bit too cynical in my old age (and have received one too many well meaning but absurd viral emails), but I figured there must be some tool available out there that could prove or disprove this fact once and for all.

Antipodr (“Find the other side of the world!”)

It just so happens that the exact opposite of Jerusalem is about the middle of the South Pacific Ocean (see here).

The exact opposite of Whangarei, New Zealand happens to be the town of Tangier, Morocco (see here).

Mythbusted.

Put another way… if a person was dying of thirst, would he care what the bottle looked like?  Of course not.

The real challenge is then, not making the packaging more desirable, but how to convince our culture that Jesus is the only person that will give them thing that will truly quench their thirst.

10 Jesus replied, “If you only knew the gift God has for you and who I am, you would ask me, and I would give you living water.”
11“But sir, you don’t have a rope or a bucket,” she said, “and this is a very deep well. Where would you get this living water? 12And besides, are you greater than our ancestor Jacob who gave us this well? How can you offer better water than he and his sons and his cattle enjoyed?”
13 Jesus replied, “People soon become thirsty again after drinking this water. 14But the water I give them takes away thirst altogether. It becomes a perpetual spring within them, giving them eternal life.”
15 “Please, sir,” the woman said, “give me some of that water! Then I’ll never be thirsty again, and I won’t have to come here to haul water.”  John 10:10-15 (NLT)

1 As the deer pants for streams of water, so I long for you, O God.
2 I thirst for God, the living God.  Psalm 42:1-2a (NLT)

Comic relief below.

I was reading the instructions that came with my newly-acquired, made in China, “half-bike”, and they assure me that all my wildest dreams will come true – all thanks to my humble unicycle.

From the Instructions (spelling and grammar as printed):

“Unicycling holds great attraction towards today’s youths who seek new and strange pleasure. It is beneficial to build up one’s body, to develop ones’ intellectual power, to enhance ones sense of appreciating beauty and to entertain oneself.

Unicycling can enrich one’s spare-time and cultural life.  It effectively promotes the growth of cerbellun and therefore improves one’s intellectual power.

“Unicycling can create an effect of psycho-logical pleasure, strongly stimulate the regular movement of nerves, and so mould one’s temperament and strengthen one’s body and one’s mind”

So there you go.  If you feel drawn to ‘strange pleasure”, want to increase your intelligence and your physique at the same time, appreciate beauty along with culture while entertaining yourself, I have good news for you…

Unicycling is the answer.