2007 August archive at Being Frank

Archive for August, 2007

Aug

Better late than never…

Categories: Being Frank...

Well as promised, here we go:

Later than I expected. Well now that I’ve successfully driven off most of the readers for today, I can write about pretty much anything I want. Which was my plan all along. So. Transformers. I recently came in posession of the Transformers Generation 1 boxed set. The entire 1st series (when it was cool) on DVD. It was actually a lot better when I was a kid to be honest. When I watch it now I spend a lot of time picking out the inconsistencies, or the mistakes. I suppose it’s a good sign and it could mean my mind’s developing.

Which leads me to my so called point for this week. I think there comes a point in our faith journeys where we really do need to examine what we believe and why it is we belive those things. Be it through discussion, reading or attending courses, I think this is something really important and vital, especially if we are going to pass the faith on. There are merits to the believe everything you’re told mentality, but you probably won’t hold up very well when your beliefs are questioned.

Aug

5.30pm at St Ben’s

By The Captain 66 Comments

Categories: Being Frank...

Woops, am running tres behind schedule today so this will be short.

A Protestant colleague was telling me last week that she’d had dinner with good friends of hers and they had raved about this thing they’d done the previous Sunday.

“What was it?” asked she. “Mass!” they replied (lapsed Catholics). “Mass? Where?” she inquired. “Why, at this church called St Benedict’s in the city. It’s AT 5.30pm.”

My collague’s pretty up with the play on matters of controversy, so she knew a little of 5.30pm service and relayed this story to me…

I got to thinkin about it all, and I personally would far rather people came back to the church through avenues like the 5.30pm service at St Ben’s, than not at all.

For those who don’t know the controversy surrounding this, someone will I’m sure go into it on this post. For those who do, I’m curious to hear from you. I was not aware of what exactly was wrong with the 5.30pm service until told recently – and I think it’s important when talking about it to distinguish between sacrilege and just not liking some of what they do…

Aug

How much is your life worth?

By Peter the First 6 Comments

Categories: Being Frank...

Michael Brewer was rescued yesterday, after being trapped by a cave-in.

The rescue effort included a peak of some 70 people, and turned the tables on Michael, who has participated in rescue effors in the past.

I was absolutely sickened by radio reports on the incident yesterday, which ended with the question of “cost”, i.e. how the rescue would, strangely, not cost Brewer anything.

It’s increasingly noticeable these days, that whenever a high-profile rescue takes place, the same issue is raised. When someone’s yacht is capsized, or plane goes down, “the rescue operation cost x” is given more and more emphasis in the media. The same few misguided individuals rabbit on about how “if you do risky activities, you should be prepared to pay for the risk”… and it’s all so alien to what society is all about, not to mention statistically flawed.

It is, statistically, far riskier to get in my car and drive to work than it is to go caving. Yet, if a car knocks mine off the road, and the jaws of life are required to cut me free, nobody asks whether I’ll be paying for the fire department callout. And nor should they. Civilised society is about working together for mutual benefit. This expectation that “user pays” for basic human compassion and assistance is a sick, immoral idea, and one that I was glad to see absent from online reports of yesterday’s event.

Aug

The compass is broken, and the harvest awaits your labour.

By The Dumb Ox 31 Comments

Categories: Being Frank...

It has been an interesting week for NZ, and a series of events have strongly brought it home to me again that the moral compass in NZ is not only pointing in the wrong direction, it appears to have well and truly broken.

Last week Auckland hosted the shameful Boobs on Bikes parade; an event where topless women parade Auckland’s central city streets to promote the pornography industry.

The NZ media were falling over themselves to promote the event, and it was reported pretty much everywhere as if it was nothing more than a Santa Parade.

Never mind the fact that self exposure in public in still illegal in NZ, or that in civilized societies it is considered a disorder that should be discouraged.

Oh, and let’s not worry about the fact that pornography involves the grave degradation of men and women and of the gift of our sexuality.

And of course, we shouldn’t be concerned by the fact that the pornography is an addiction that breaks up marriages and families, dehumanises its participants and helps to act as a gateway into child pornography, prostitution, and child sexual abuse.

Instead, let’s have a parade down the main street of our biggest city to celebrate this instrument of dehumanisation and deviancy – oh, and while we’re at it, let’s mock and berate anyone who has the moral fortitude to recognise the parade and its associated industry for what it is, and then dare to question the appropriateness of such a disgraceful event.

After a day of talkback callers and media commentators all praising the parade, or laughing it off as a bit of harmless fun and then ridiculing anyone who dared to suggest otherwise I was tempted to draw comparisons to the last days of Rome.

Anyway, I flicked on the late news to see the news about an ATM machine in Queenstown that had been loaded wrong and as a result it was giving out twice the amount of money that people were actually withdrawing.

Instead of reporting this issue to the police, people actually contacted friends and family and told them about the fault and suggested that they come down and take the opportunity to join them in a spot of thieving.

Witnesses estimate that the queue of people lined up to steal money was 15 to 20 people long, constantly, for a six hour period.

Welcome to the culture of death.

Our country is a mess of sexual confusion, moral deviation and plain old brokenness – just ask the more than 50 New Zealanders killed in the womb every day, 365 days a year.

There is only one thing that can fix this problem, more precisely there is only one man who can fix this problem: Jesus.

The need for us to be faithful witnesses to the Gospel is becoming ever more pressing, and the mission field no longer lies in some foreign country, it is now in our own cities, workplaces and families.

The harvest is ripe, the workers are few and now ain’t the time for slackers or half-hearted commitment to the task of evangelisation.

Are you in, or are you just gonna sit on the sidelines and watch instead of getting your hands dirty doing the very work that Christ established His Church to do; leading souls to the truth of Jesus Christ and eternity in Heaven.

How about you about start today by doing a bit of witnessing to a workmate, friend or family member who needs to hear about Christ?

Aug

Peace, joy and pancakes

By James the Least 14 Comments

Categories: Being Frank...

I found it interesting to read the article on the NZ Catholic website about the elder brother of the Pope and his new book, “Der Bruder des Papstes” (“The Pope’s Brother”). Interesting for a couple of reasons.

The first is that it must be a credit to their family to have a Monsignor and a Pope come out of the same family! That’s pretty impressive, you have to admit.

The second is that I find it interesting to reflect on the Pope as being a brother…and a younger brother at that! I find it interesting because we so often raise the Pope up and forget (I think) that he was once just an ordinary guy like anyone else. Sure, he’s extraordinary now, but I like to take stock from time to time and recognise that he is human too.

Usually that phrase is used to make people remember that priests and cardinals are still men, and still open to fault and failing. However, I’m using the phrase to try and bring the focus back to the fact that it is easy to box and dismiss someone who you can’t connect with. This is especially evident when we look at the clergy. How often have you heard something akin to “who are they to say we can’t do ‘x’? They’re just a bunch of celibate, old men in Rome?” That’s evidence, in my opinion, of dismissing them because of the position they hold and vocation they’re living.

Case in point: Pope John Paul II. I presented a talk on him once, and it was only when I was digging through various archives and articles that I discovered a whole other side to the man that was the leader of the Church for over 25 years. He was an athlete, an avid skier, an actor and a bit of a joker by many accounts! I, instead, had only ever seen him as the Pope…and an elderly one at that.

This whole “remembering the normal human aspect on things” draws me to the other thing I found interesting about the article. When asked about the controversies of his brother’s Pontificate, the Monsignor responded that:

“A person active in God’s kingdom has to expect resistance - just like Our Lord, who also encountered enemies time and again. It can’t all be peace, joy and pancakes.”

What an interesting phrase. I think that it is easy to be enemies with someone when you don’t connect with them. If you don’t make the effort to understand a little about them, how can you be expected to be friends?

Maybe before we box and dismiss people in future, we should take a bit of time to ask…who’s brother are they?

P.S. It was great to meet some of you at the Being Frank meet-up on Saturday – thanks for making the effort to attend and make those of us who write this blog recognise that it is worth it.

Aug

Sex Ed

By eyeWitness 10 Comments

Categories: Being Frank...

ERO has reported that New Zealand is still not doing well at properly teaching sex education in schools. But what does doing well mean? According to them the curriculum is too repetitive and not “assessed” properly.

Having achieved the second highest number of teenage pregnancies in the OECD we must be doing something wrong. Last year the fertility rate for teenagers in New Zealand was 28.4 in every 1000 women aged 15 to 19. The United States was the only country with a higher teenage fertility rate – 45 pregnancies in 1000 women aged 15 to 19 years.

But is teaching kids everything there is to know about std and sex and then “assessing” them really the answer? While arguably needed, somehow I don’t think amazing factual knowledge of sex will really help those stats. And on top of that you have the emotional destruction of so many young adults who don’t realise that there are any emotions involved with what they’re doing until it’s too late.

The problem is sex is taught like it is something that has no emotions attached. It’s not something sacred that requires committment. Why don’t we teach about the emotions surrounding sex? Why don’t we talk about how screwed up a young girl’s self esteem will get when she gives herself to some guy with no strings attached then is wrecked emotionally, till eventually she has de-sensitized herself to the whole thing. But instead we teach it’s fine as long as you’re using contraception and get std checks.

You can check out the story below:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10459600

Aug

Those Damn T-shirts

By Filia Day 62 Comments

Categories: Being Frank...

I think its time I confess a little dark secret in Filia Day’s closet. Right, here we go. Ever since my early teenage years I have developed somewhat of a weird obsession with communism, not of course, as a personal lifestyle choice. While the other little girls playing with Barbie and My Little ponies, I was reading Animal Farm and doing school projects on Marx. That’s not to say I didn’t have a Barbie or two. However, while my friends were planning Barbie and Ken’s life out with their horse and mobile caravan, my Barbie and Ken were planning a revolution. Needless to say, I dropped the call for a revolution quite swiftly once I was told by my parents that the wall had fallen, yet I continued to read, study and inspect anything (and I mean anything) to do with communism. You think I’m joking? Well, a telling piece of evidence says otherwise – I wrote my thesis refuting Marxian conceptions of the State.

Now you may be wondering where this meandering rant is actually going and what exactly it has to do with T-shirts. Well, as a consequence of my little obsession with Marxism and communism, I tend to know a little more about communism that the average 24 year old – my generation were wee young things when the wall fell and in consequence are near ignorant to the very real threat communism posed to western civilisation from the late 50s onwards. Let’s face it, most teenagers these days don’t know much about communism. That’s no generalisation. I marked 150 essays on communism late last year that proved exactly that. Another stark example of my generation’s ignorance of communism (and might I add it’s associated atrocities) is that over the last couple of years it has becoming increasingly trendy to wear t-shirts (and accessories including pendants, coffee mugs and even underwear) with the face of Che Guevara smeared all over them. You know him, the guy with the beret with the communist star on it, the long hair and the rebellious looking beard – if you haven’t seen someone wearing one – WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?

I sometimes wonder (and often doubt) if these kids know exactly who it is they are sporting on their clothing. Let me introduce you to Che Guevara. No he’s not a Argentinean freedom fighter, he joined the revolution with Fidel Castro and quickly attain a reputation for a ruthless executioner – imprisoning and slaughtering thousands of Cubans in his time. In the late-1960s, Che was assassinated by the CIA and, in consequence, became a martyr for the anti-establishment movement in the US.

Yes, that’s right my generation (and probably yours) is stupid enough to plaster an Argentinean butcher all over there clothing in the name of freedom (which is a little ironic considering he worked for a communist dictatorship).

I have to say though, I do like some of the anti-Che memorabilia that is going round at the moment. Here’s three of my favourites (excuse my French) “Murdering communist bastard.”, “Che Guevara: Fooling middle class white kids since 1967″ and “Don’t know who this guy is but he sure sells a lot of t-shirts.” Classic.