Thursday, October 29, 2009

12 Angry Men

This isn't really a review, so I've not headed it as such.
Lois and I have watched this movie last night and tonight.
It's fascinating, in that it shows us the interactions of a jury attempting to deliberate on a charge of murder.
At the start they are 11 for guilty and 1 for not guilty.
As the play progresses, the bloke who was at first for "not guilty" (played with consummate skill by Jack Lemmon) manages to swing the jury round from "guilty".
Just before the end there is a dramatic/tense moment from George C. Scott, who holds the balance in his hands.
A dramatic movie, probably a play in a previous incarnation.
A fascinating study of character types and influence.
No women in the jury!
After this we watched the penultimate episode of "Gormsby" the 2nd series - very LOL stuff (but take of your PC-tinted lenses before you watch!).

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Just Like Job

In case you hadn't noticed, I am feeling a bit Job-like at the moment.
We have had quite a bit of teaching and preaching about this guy lately.
For those of you who aren't "in the know", a brief explanation.
Job is a guy in the bible who is extremely wealthy, successful, famous, healthy, happy, righteous, etc.
In one or two fell swoops, the Devil, given a "free reign" by God, wipes out virtually all of these happiness ingredients in Job's life, except for his wife (and as a recent preacher pointed out, anyone who has a wife who comes out with the line "curse God and die" has cause to wonder about "matrimonial bliss"!!).
Job has 3 friends who arrive on the scene, and spend a week on their knees in silence, praying.
It is only when they open their mouths with "helpful advice" that the stress begins.
A 40-chapter discussion takes place, finishing with God speaking to Job, and pointing out that God's ways are not our ways and that "it ain't why, it just is" (a quote from Van Morrison)....

I have many good friends who have been holding and hugging me over the last week or so, without the "good advice" - thank you.
I am also conscious of those who feel helpless to help or support and wish that there was even just one thing they could do for me.
Only pray.
And hug.
Love.
When I am gone, you will remember these hugs and this love probably more than anything else.
And I want you to remember my love more than anything else.

On which note, apologies to anyone out there in blogland who may feel I have been less than loving with you! (...just because Labtests have treated me shoddily doesn't mean I have to hate the people!)
There is a brilliant song out there on You Tube by Jubilation Choir, written by Rick Bryant, called "Learn to Forgive" (I think), and Sophie and I are going to ee them this Fri.
Malcolm McA, teacher from school, has a sister who sings the solo in this song...it is beautiful!
The concert is at 8pm at Mangere East Metro Theatre (Massey Rd?) - $25 adults, $15 students, $5 groups 10 or more.
And don't forget The Ultimate Showcase and Music Awards at my school next Tuesday at 7pm!!
If you are in Auckland that night, and free, come along and enjoy some superb and passionate music making.

Which brings me to tonight's concert - the A Cappella Finals at O.C.
Hillary Samuela came 3rd - she is in my tutor group - the rest of her group didn't turn up, which was disappointing, but she sang so well by herself, I was so proud of her!
Next up were "Blessed", a trio of Year 10 girls, 2 from my Music class and one from Kirsty's - a lot of potential and already starting to gain substantial confidence as performers (2nd place).
Last were The Dreamers - a trio of girls I have already raved about on these pages (see my report on the Last Chemo) - Christine Fetuiai, Sulieti Finau and Losa Iakopo.
What harmonies, warmth, "tightness", confidence and expression.
These girls make me so proud! And happy and moved and hopeful and strong.
You will eventually find a clip of their performances on You Tube I think - Andy will let me know
when the clip is up.
I also want to thank Theo, Barry and Malcolm for having the guts to get up and sing "Working on the Railroad" with me as light relief!

Christine Fe's uncle passed away this morning.
And that takes me back to the start of this blog - this young woman has lost so many family recently, and this uncle took a special interest in her musical gifts.
What could I say to her?
Hugs, hugs, hugs - let the sorrow out.
Please pray for her.
......and I told her to come into school tomorrow.
Heartless?
Not in my experience - she will gain strength from following the routines, and she will have the support of friends and family at school.

Till tomorrow (hopefully the blogsite will load a bit faster!!).

Love,

G.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Tethered, and yet Untethered

Tethered, and yet untethered.
Free, and yet bound.
Courageous, but fearful.
Alive whilst dying...
Strong and yet so weak.
Hopeful, but losing hope.
Successful, yet failing.
Walking and stumbling.
Flying and falling.
Lost and found.....

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Healing, part II

A funny game, this healing thing.
Pray for healing - it may or may not happen.
If it happens, give thanks and praise...
If not, well, God has bigger plans.
The thorn in the side - it's up to God - He can take it away, or leave it in us.
Does God like to hear the cries of pain and anguish and suffering that come from His injured, bruised, damaged and dying children?
Does He expect us to understand, and accept our pain stoically?
Are we expected to be big and grown up about "all this"?
We all go through pain, we all die - it's not fair, just, balanced or rational...
And we are designed also not to give up, take it lying down, and cease our struggles.
The cycle continues - Hope, Pain, Suffering, Prayer, Death, Faith...
And somewhere in a mysterious and huge cloud, lie the answers to the questions...

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Things Heat Up Again

As you can tell, I haven't been able to report the last couple of evenings.
On Thursday night I attended the Service Awards at school.
The guest speaker was Clint Samesia who, strangely enough, I had met when he was a student and I an English teacher back in Term 1 1990.
He said he remembered my eyes!
He spoke very well about service - turning up on time, listening and the Samoan concept of "Tautua" (similar to Maori "Tautoko"?) - supporting those who are your representatives.
It was a lovely evening - I thoroughly relished giving certificates to "my kids" - those who have committed themselves to Music groups through the years.

And last night was also very special.
Maria D., a colleague at school, invited me to her place for a Music Evening.
She and her husband are Iranian, and they had invited 2 friends, Hamid and Elizabeth (sp?), who play santoor (a hammered dulcimer, not unlike a zither or cimbalom) and hand drums respectively.
I played some viola, then we had 2 songs from Hamid, Elizabeth and Maria, who sings with a rich, strong voice, then I played and sang some rock'n'roll.
The food was EXCELLENT also, and my colleague Rosemary T and her husband Richard were also there.
Great company!
Persian rugs everywhere (Maria and family/friends are Persian as opposed to Arabic) - gorgeous!

The week ahead is also looking busy - if anyone is free on Wed, we are having our a cappella finals at school starting at 7pm - should be a special, fun (and short) time!
Meanwhile trying to adjust to the hernia and not hold my bitterness about Labtests and NZQA too tightly...
Such a beautiful day today (3 - 4 hours in the garden)!
Relishing this fantastic Youssou N'Dour album, "Nothing is in Vain"...brimming with energy, beauty and good things.

Love,

Gerald.

"The Tent" (book review)

By Margaret Atwood.
This is a collection of "short stories" (more like prose pieces, though sometimes like poems), some previously published, some new to our eyes!
Like the Bill Bryson book I am concurrently reading, the snippets are quite short indeed, usually no more than 3 or 4 (small) pages each.
The titles are spicy and enticing...
"Our Cat Enters Heaven", "Salome Was a Dancer", "Three Novels I Won't Write Soon", to name but 3...
and those are just the titles!
This is the first time I've read a book by Margaret Atwood.
It certainly won't be the last!
How can I describe her writing?
Clear, sharp, incisive, humorous, scary, and original!
I kept telling Sophie she had to read this, but I have to admit some of the writings are a bit...adult?...
In some ways like Bryson, but definitely more poetic and concentrated (and darker...)
I strongly recommend this book to anyone wanting to take a risk or two in their reading (let alone writing).
Bring on "The Year of the Flood"!

G.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

"Designed To Die"?

Did that grab your attention?

The title comes from a conversation I had with my "Cancer Counsellor" yesterday.
Her name is Rebecca L, and she works at the Cancer Society.
I get free counselling here - brilliant.
I was sharing with her, amongst other things, my dread of pain if and when I get to the last stages of my life - I have witnessed, at first hand, what appeared to be uncomfortable, painful deaths, and also talked to a man whose wife's cancer had spread into her brain and left her unable to control her thoughts, etc.

Rebecca first talked about the individual's power to control the pain relief in the final stages.
Then about the body's ability to close itself down/"die" without too much discomfort/pain.
She observed that with most deaths it is those who are left behind who experience the grief - usually the dying person is not too stressed about it.
Then she said "we are designed to die".
This was not said in a callous way at all - in fact, I found it immensely comforting.
I mean, think about it - Death and Taxes - we will all go thru these 2 traumas in our own way and time.
Afterwards, though, I remembered that, yes, the body is designed to die, BUT we, as spiritual beings also, are designed to live forever!
Let there be no doubt about this also (just had that "Death is not the End" song playing again).
Thanks, Rebecca!

2 bum notes from the hospital...

1. Labtests failed to do my cancer marker test and get it to the hospital - what on earth is going to happen about this crisis in blood testing in Auckland? Whoever it was on the ADHB who decided to trash Diagnostic Med Lab and go for cheap, inexperienced labour has a LOT to answer for - it's on a par with NCEA...but more potentially fatal and distressing in the short term.

2. I have developed an incisional hernia, i.e. a hernia (rupture) caused by the surgery. Because these things are very tricky and complex to operate on, Dr Thompson was quite emphatic that I needn't have surgery unless and until it becomes more of a problem - watch this space (and not my tummy).

Upsides from yesterday included Christine Fa'amausili joining the Blog Crew - welcome, Christine! - and a lovely dinner visit from "old Uni friend" (AND co-lodger from London days), Read Gainsford.

Read is performing a concert on Fri eve at the Raye Freedman Centre (Epsom Girls' Grammar) - a wonderful selection of piano pieces including Liszt's Piano Sonata in B minor and Shostakovich's Dolly Pieces (?).

And so passes the first Post-Chemo blog (assuming the last cycle ended yesterday) - needless to say, I am trying not to over-react to every little twinge of pain that comes my way.

If I come across as a little paranoid, well, it's all their fault...

Love,

G.

Monday, October 19, 2009

A Supernatural Experience

Here's something I don't share very often, but I thought the time is nigh to share it here and now.
I became a Christian in 1982, after searching for God since about 1972 (various religions, philosophies, beliefs, churches, etc.).
I committed my life to following Christ after a pastor at Valley Rd Church talked about the need to weigh up the cost before committing to following Christ.
I weighed up the cost, decided, and became a Christian.

Either that night or perhaps the night after, as I lay in my bed, I smelt a strong, overwhelming and luscious fragrance in the room...
No rational explanation for it at all, and I take that memory of that fragrance with me as some kind of proof of the presence of God with me...
As the man healed by Jesus said, when questioned by the Jewish priests, "All I know is that I was blind, but now I see!"
All I know is that that fragrance was there...and the next morning it faded away.
No one else could smell it.

And I didn't keep flowers, and I had not spent the night with Lois (and anyway that was not her perfume).

A bit of a touchstone for my faith, I think...a memory that will never die.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Sunny/Windy/Wet/Dry

Make up your mind, elements!
A "full church" day today, with both Sophie and me playing in the worship team.
We had about 10 musicians up there on stage today - 4 in the wind section.
There was one song where Graeme ceased on keyboard and the wind and I kept going, providing a more than adequate harmonic cushion for the congregation - good fun!
Andrew's friends from Hawkes Bay - Peggy, Harry and Johannes - came for lunch.
Harry particularly keen on early synthesiser music and, like me, keen on PG-era Genesis.
At last I had an excuse for playing Messiaen to a total stranger (the ondes- martenot in the Turangalila Symphony)!
Have been listening a lot to my recent purchases - PG - "Blue Ball", Youssou N'Dour "Nothing is in Vain", Nick Cave "Murder Ballads" and Billy Joel "Piano Man" (the studio album, NOT the compilation).
The Nick Cave album is astounding (though his version of Stagger Lee is an absolute foulmouthed rant, and best not played to children, aunties or nuns)...
Virtually all the songs are Cave originals, done in styles that evoke the earlier genres of murder ballads (e.g. Johnny Cash, Loovin Brothers, Irish folk songs, Appalachian Mountain songs)...
I shied away from getting this record for many years, thinking it would be just a tad TOO dark and depressing - I should have remembered just how great Cave and his band, The Bad Seeds, are at arranging their music - the album is dark, but SUBLIMELY so.
And then, to cap it all off, Cave launches into a version of Bob Dylan's "Death is Not the End" (originally from Dylan's allegedly "abysmal" 25th studio album from 1988, "Down in the Groove").
After all the darkness, a little ray of golden sunshine lights our way.
Well, this post started as a journal entry and ended as a semi-review of Nick Cave...more profiles spring to mind, but if you'd rather not read profiles of my favourite music, let me know!
I once had a dream of doing a very in-depth analysis of early Bowie albums as a PhD (amongst other possible PhD projects), but needless to say those sort of plans are on hold at the moment...let's see what eventuates.
Profiles could be a sort of consolation prize (and certainly more accessible than an academic squeeze on Ziggy/Aladdin/Diamond Dog).
Till tomorrow (this PG album has, amongst others, my beloved Sinead O'C and also Tim Finn).

Friday, October 16, 2009

Big Busy Day

6am up with the larks (or tuis).
7.10am take Sophie to school (after late night at worship group practice).
7.45am Theo and Kerry pick me up for school.
8.35am start of school.
Teach, teach, teach....
10.50am my favourite favourite time with freshly made milky coffee, home baking and chat!
1.30pm memorial service for tsunami victims.
3.11pm home again, home again.
5.20pm Leslie and Beckie Callaghan bring dinner - total (and pleasant) surprise!
5.50pm into town with Sophie.
Borders, Real Groovy and Haydn's Creation at the Town Hall (to be reviewed later).
Back home to blog, bed and Bill Bryson.
Nighty night!

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Here Comes the Knife...(profile of Genesis)

The Knife...the last song on Genesis's first "proper" album, Trespass.
If you visit YouTube you will find a lot of clips of early Genesis.
When both Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins had hair!
My earliest memories of Genesis were my sister Joke talking about them with her friend, Anne Reid.
They were very theatrical, with Peter Gabriel prancing around wearing make-up and masks and gowns, and singing songs of mystical physical transformations and apocalypse and horrid deaths - everything to appeal to a 14 year old boy!
I remember I needed to spend some nights over at our neighbours' around this time (I think we had Marjan's family visiting from London).
Their adult son had a big stereo, with great headphones, and an LP of Genesis's "Nursery Cryme" - amongst other things this had some great narratives, including Harold the Barrel, featuring PG in absolute theatrical form, voicing all the characters in the sad tale of Harold.
Genesis were, obviously to me, an early influence on our very own Split Enz - progressive song structures, keyboard-dominated, "epic" songs, bizarre theatrics and eerie humour.
After purchasing a copy of Nursery Cryme, I won a copy of "Trick of the Tail" in a radio competition.
This was the first post-PG album, and, weirdly and almost inexplicably, it was at THIS time that the band began a rather quick progress towards megastardom!
PG went on to do "Solsbury Hill" and found Real World records and discover many wonderful musicians in all corners of the globe - and never look back.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Retro Sounds

I am thinning down our CD collection, which tends to wax and wane.
I am finding myself drawn to the sounds of the 70s, definitely MY formative musical years.
As I blog, I am listening to Jethro Tull's "Passion Play" from around 1972.
This followed "Thick As a Brick" and is similarly a throughcomposed magnum opus in proggy/folky style.
I was first turned on to Tull by my sister Plonie, who had a copy of TAaB.
She also had a stereo with huge speakers with blue padding on the box. Impressive!
(In her collection she had Paul Simon, S and G, Leonard Cohen, Art Garfunkel, Neil Diamond, The Beatles...MANY things that became MINE in terms of taste).
I used to love going for a sleepover at her flat/house and trawling through her LPs (in fact I did this with all my sisters - Carla had loads of S and G, Marjan had loads of Wagner and Verdi, Joke had loads of classical stuff, and one of her Hamilton friends had Bowie's Ziggy Stardust - once I heard "5 Years" I was away!)...
My "eternal" faves, which I have no intention of thinning down, are Van Morrison, Bob Marley, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam, Paul Simon, Sinead O'Connor, but I also have some very "well represented" artists there...hmm...I sense a series of profiles about to appear (will I lose my "audience"/"readership" though?).
Aaah, well, time to help the Hare find his spectacles!

Get it?

Love,

G.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Daily Priorities

With a terminal illness, daily priorities change (doh!).
Paperwork takes a huge back seat and in the front seat come face to face interactions.
Moaning about one's lot is replaced by finding the joy of a situation.
Issues which seemed important to hold on to can be let go.
NCEA becomes...well, always has been....well, I'll say no more.
The quality (and quantity!) of toilet paper "is not strained"...
A student's "achievement"/"success" becomes less important than their growth as a human being.
You relinquish control of the health you thought you had.
God becomes even bigger and more mysterious.
Eternal life is THE thing and life on earth becomes, by comparison, very small and short.
Yet NOT insignificant.
The kindness of a student sharing her home-baked afghans takes on huge meaning.
And the cat spontaneously jumping up on your lap, curling up, purring away and giving you "that look" of contentment, trust, acceptance - the little things become big, and the big things become little...

Sunday, October 11, 2009

The Hug

Today was a very emotional day for me at church.

First of all, Fred invited me to share with the church as to where things are at for me....
I told them I was off chemo and have entered a phase of waiting, watching, hoping and praying.
Maria L came up and prayed for Samoa etc. - tears.
Then Dianne B. opened "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross"...more tears.
Then guest speaker Meredith spoke about "Grief"...more tears.
Andrew was with me...he gave me a reassuring pat on the back...
Then Fred announced for people going through Grief to come up the front for prayer...

I asked Andrew to grab me a coffee, as I might be gone "for some time" and made my way up the front...
An elder (sort of "old person" within the church with proven spiritual maturity), Brian A., came and sat down next to me and simply hugged me for a long, long time.
...As I sat and cried and wept and wept...for myself, for my family, for the loss of ...life?....stuff???...sunny days?...

I have just realised now that that hug from Brian was an "echo" of a hug my Dad gave me when we went over to Kawau Island and I got seasick and there was nothing Dad could do about it except comfort me with his physical, big, warm, reassuring presence - his arm around me.

As you know, I am an emotional guy...that's both a strength and a weakness, I s'pose, but it is the way I am...I don't bottle stuff up successfully and my face is pretty easy to read...

Brian, thank you for your presence, your prayers, but most of all your Hug.

I will never forget it!

By the way, if anyone else out there would like a hug, I still have planty to share!

Just ask!

Love,

Gerald.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Super Twelve and Beyond

Today was a big day for the Super Twelve.
At 1.30pm we set up at Dingwalls special school in Papatoetoe.
We treated the boys who are resident there to a short concert of our items for the Golf gig.
Then set up at the Grange golf club in Papatoetoe (round the corner).
4pm back home to "crash".
8.15pm back at The Grange.
Pasifika bracket, sausage rolls, then back up for Beatles, Bob (Marley), Benny and Bjorn (ABBA).
The crowd of 180 celebratory golfers loved us and gave us extra cash for a couple more songs!
The group enjoyed themselves.
We still need to work on the turning up on time, though!

Friday, October 9, 2009

Blog 200 - Chemo 12.

I am still here!
Disconnected for the last time today (for a while at least, I hope).
Feeling elated, wanting to run around the domain, but actually felt a bit tired.
Practice with Super Twelve (not many there - different story for later).
A wet day - kids at Rainbow's End with Andrew.
Nurses sad to say goodbye - felt likewise, but actually pleased to be free from chemo for a while.
How to monitor health now - especially thinking about return of the cancer...

in this world you will have sorrows, but take heart, Jesus has overcome the "world"/death/finity.

after Hozzy down to Real Groovy - Big Day Out tickets and trade-ins...purchased 2 Sparks albums, including Kimono My House (surreal, quirky and highly imaginative), a live Jan Garbarek and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's last recordings (produced by Rick Rubin, of Johnny Cash and Neil Diamond rehabilitation fame).

If you have not ever heard Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's singing, I thoroughly recommend you listen to at least one song - intense, ecstatic and virtuoso.

G.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

"UP (3D)" (movie review)

Pixar movies appear to be virtually instant classics.
In the first 10 minutes you knew this one was going to be no exception.
A beautiful, colourful, hilarious, deep, uplifting (ugh!) and moving movie.
A great show for the whole family - adults would not be embarrassed to venture forth alone together into the cinema for this film.
It has a French quality to it, which is something very rare in a Disney movie.
The Frenchness of understatement - letting the visuals, music, expressions and silences do the talking.
Good guy widower Carl voiced by Ed Asner (grumpy old codger from Mary Tyler Moore and Lou Grant TV series).
Fallen hero turned bad guy voiced by Christopher Plummer.
And many other wonderful characters, who I will not reveal!
3D understated and very effective.
I urge you to see it before it leaves the big screen - and if you need to borrow a child to see it with, borrow me (or mine)!

A sunny day almost

Sleep in till 8am.
Pump still connected!
Alexander and friend Hamish playing war games peacefully...
2 coffees and a scrumptious piece of carrot cake at Ironique, shared with Geoff Wood, a lovely man who runs a music/educational supplie business.
The best carrot cake in the Village, if not the city...
French Bread! Tomatoes!
Star Trek Enterprise - the crew were attacked by a mysterious web-like creature - communication a problem (sounds like the internet?).
Sausages! Chips! Salad (including Tomatoes!).
Off to Anne of Green Gables, directed by my neighbour Jan Saussey, and with a score by an ex-student of mine, Andrew Naea (who did, as I thought he would, a terrific job!).
Home again, greeted by hungry Samson threatening to tear down the temple...

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

The times, they are a-changing (again)

Enz of an era.

Stepping off the known road, again. No more chemo for now.
Wishes, prayers, possibilities, darkest fears and deeply held, faintest hopes coalesce.

Good things - low-grade reaction to chemo along with strong anti-cancer effect - can easily be ignored and set aside as just not good enough.
Uncertainty prevails, no medics can predict - slow, fast, or jagged regrowth?

It's never going to be good enough, leaving the party early. Nor should it be.
The days are like gemstones - the forgettable ones highlighting the marvellous times by their contrast.
Even the forgettable ones, and particularly the terrible ones, can be learning, yearning times.
Pain is a normal part of life. I won't let a piece of it stop me from ... striving, laughing, experiencing, sharing ... living.

A very wise person talked to me about giving this situation and experience the time and space it needs.
In space, no one can hear you scream ... just kidding, folks. Really.


L

7th October

Don't know why I'm calling this 7th October.
Because it is?
Some things just are.
The first course of chemo is over.
If a "miracle" happens, it will be the last time I submit myself to cytotoxic chemicals in a collective effort to battle cancer!
If no miracle, I get to dress up again when the time is right...
In "Aida" (Verdi's version, not the Tim Rice and Elton John cartoon), the star couple burst into the most beautiful duet as the tomb is being sealed (they get buried alive).
"O Terra Addio" (goodbye, world).
What a way to go!
I will probably be posting a bit more regularly in the future (did you notice I scaled it down for a while??), sometimes with a random miscellany of thoughts and feelings such as this evening, and sometimes with a little more focus.
Today my "girls", The Dreamers, an a cappella vocal trio from my Year 12 class at school, came and serenaded the patients and staff at the oncology ward - they were a huge hit!
Christine Fetuiai, Sulieti Finau and Losa Iakopo...
2 of these girls having lost swathes of family in the Samoan Tsunami...
We went to UP in 3D afterwards...rest assured, I will review this in detail, giving it the blogspace it deserves...suffice to say it is a beautiful film!
Andrew Clasby has been a wonderful chemo buddy for the last 5 months.
Words are not nearly enough to express my thanks to this caring person - humour, care, support...presence...
Thanks, Andrew!
Maria Carbines - the packages delivered without fail from Chemo 2 - thank you for your thoughtfulness and energy!
Last but not least, my family...Sophie, Alexander and Lois, who have kept me "anchored"/"earthed"/ "grounded" (never thought I would see it as a blessing/privilege to be taken for granted/wrestled with/mocked by the younger generation/sat on a sofa eating butter chicken)...
And to those who have sent kind thoughts, love, money(!!), and prayers/spiritual energy...
Thank you!

Arohanui,

Gerald.

ps Samson came, jumped up, nestled and is purring away since I began this blog.

And that's why cats are!

Sunday, October 4, 2009

The Last Battle...

So this week is Chemo no.12.
The last battle between Folfiri and the tumours...for the time being.
As discussed previously, my hopes are that this will be all I need.
Sometimes I feel I am spookily close to that goal.
A man called Meredith came and preached at our church today.
He has suffered chronic and terrible spinal and leg pain for 22 years.
He referred a lot to 2 Corinthians 12, which is the passage about the thorn in Paul's side.
One of the things Meredith said was that God gives us one day at a time.
We have a choice to live it in Hurt or in Hope.
Sometimes it doesn't feel like we CAN choose Hurt or Hope.
But when it does seem we can, Hope is definitely the way that is lit up.

G.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

"Teacher Man" (book review)

...by Frank McCourt, author of Angela's Ashes and 'Tis.

McCourt recounts his years as a teacher in NYC secondary schools, mostly "vocational high schools" (technical/trades based) but finishing with Stuyvesant High, an upmarket secondary for students destined for Harvard, Yale, MIT, etc. (that's MIT in the USA, NOT Manukau, Junior!)...
Having come from the pages of a densely written and very grim sci-fi novel by Ballard (see review of "The Drought"), I was struck by the total contrast of tone, style and message found in Teacher Man.
The book is a memoir - a string of (in places hugely) entertaining episodes from the classrooms of New York.

I have a literary colleague at O.C. (yes, Junior, that's Otahuhu College, not Orange County) who hated this book - in further discussion it appeared that perhaps one of the reasons could be too close an identification with McCourt's adventures...
For me, the identification was similarly close - but I loved it for that!
Particularly the struggle, in the early years of his vocation, to make sense of the whole thing and feel in any way purposeful.
Also the incidents/conversations recounted, often with a wistful, gentle and humorous touch.
The lesson on recipes that becomes a performing arts extravaganza!
The sandwich dropped on the floor in conflict which the teacher picks up and...eats!
The collective animal which is a class full of 35 adolescents!
Picking on a "smart guy" student only to find later that he is ion the midst of unbelievable personal turmoil.
And the ONE student who suddenly, unexpectedly makes one's travails worthwhile!

If you're a teacher out there, read this book - you may be inspired, and at least vindicated.

Highly recommended.

G.

If you aren't a teacher, read this book - it won't make you want to change your profession, but it will give you an entertaining and enjoyable read at the expense of McCourt's experiences.

"G.I. Joe - Rise of Cobra" (movie review)

I went to this movie with Alexander. His choice!
The movie is based on action-toy characters - a bit like Transformers.
Americans...they can make a movie out of anything!
The movie was action-packed, fx-packed, explosion-packed...
There were some quieter moments - maybe a few more than Terminator Salvation.
Overall, though, we moved from spectacle to spectacle...
secret hideaways under the pyramids, the Arctic Ice Cap...and the Eiffel Tower crumbling before our very eyes!
Some nifty martial arts scenes and some good ol' tough-boy humour.
A cross between Terminator and Fantastic 4?
Definitely one for "the boys".
And probably of "a certain age" as well.
A bit mindless, but enjoyable-ish.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Tsunami

7, 4 and 3 years old...
Swept away.
The mother unconscious cannot mourn...
Only father and grandfather.

Where is God?
Where was He?
Was He watching?
Oh, yes...
A God of Love....
Well, how does this work out now?
In ways too unfathomable for me to understand.

My footsteps on the sand of these islands washed away...
Salt tears...a wave of salt tears...
Too unfathomable for me.....
I can understand, a bit, some of the pain.
I can understand pain.

These smiling faces will smile again.
But not now, not yet.
White Sunday coming soon...
But many will be dressed in black.