Tracking discrimination: one of the marks of racism in the US was the engrained habit of banks to “redline” certain districts where they would not lend for mortgages. You guessed it: these were the places where black people lived.
Driving past a gargantuan shopping centre on Sydney’s Northern Beaches one evening as the shops closed, Obadiah was struck by the long queues of people dressed in retailer uniforms waiting for their bus home. And hours of travel for many.
Call it Critical Rail theory – Australian cities have their own form of redlining with public transport. Wealthy areas like Sydney’s northern “insular peninsular” and most beachside suburbs despite being heavily and excessively populated, don’t have railway access.
This means that the lowest paid have the longest travel times. Or if they travel by car they will pay the highest tolls. Sometimes a map is a good test of whether we love our neighbours as ourselves.
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Mediawatch and pundit watch: Hyperactive facebooker Lyle Shelton Family First’s new national director posted this picture, complaining “Where’s the Australian flag?”
Cue anger from his followers.
But then someone else posted this:
Cue accusations that Shelton had cropped the image.
Well, no. A search of the Guardian site finds the Mick Tsikas AAP image in the Guardian with the crop that Lyle Shelton posted.
So:
- There were two Australian flags there. Lots of shots show them.
- Lyle did not crop his shot. He’s innocent. But maybe should have checked a bit harder.
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Ring ring: A great reminder of the C. S. Lewis essay “The Inner Ring” by a preacher who was asked to preach at St Obadiah’s at 6;30 am, Sunday. Cracker sermon. Lewis’ essay is something EVERY Christian should read. (TL: DR the inner ring is about the quest to be an “insider”. Here’s a key quote from Lewis:
“The quest of the Inner Ring will break your hearts unless you break it. But if you break it, a surprising result will follow. If in your working hours you make the work your end, you will presently find yourself all unawares inside the only circle in your profession that matters. You will be one of the sound craftsmen, and other sound craftsmen will know it. This group of craftsmen will by no means coincide with the Inner Ring or the Important People or the People in the Know. It will not shape that professional policy or work up that professional influence that fights for the profession as a whole against the public: nor will it lead to those periodic scandals and crises which the Inner Ring produces. But it will do those things which that profession exists to do and will, in the long run, be responsible for all the respect which that profession enjoys and which the speeches and advertisements cannot maintain.”
Now go and read the whole thing at https://www.lewissociety.org/innerring/
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Suffering and silence: A North American Bishop tells of a moment at the Lambeth gathering of Anglican bishops where he could but listen. “At the retreat before the Lambeth Conference formally began, we were invited to share a story of suffering in our life with our neighbour. I was sitting next to a South Sudanese bishop. We introduced ourselves. I asked if he had anything he wanted to share. He did. His mother and two of his brothers were killed last month in a raid that was part of a conflict between herders and agriculturalists. His mother’s home was burned. He has been unable to bury these family members. Rather than share whatever I might have offered as an example of personal suffering, I prayed and laid hands on this brother.”
Matt Gunter, Bishop of Fond du Lac which is in Wisconsin
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Nice name: the plumbing company who have come to fix the leaky water pipes in our street are called “watertight.”
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Ripe for a Gripe: Obadiah has more than his share of moderating Facebook. And he gets distressed at Christians hurling curt comments, usually one-liners at each other. If you have a serious point, please make it, and that probably means composing something than a three-word slogan.
How to get Christians to consider being more considerate? Maybe this saying of Jese might help:
One-liners remind Obadiah of Matthew 11:16-17. “To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others:
“ ‘We played the pipe for you,
and you did not dance;
we sang a dirge,
and you did not mourn.’