Quotes I've appreciated

"In the new economy* there were [are?] three kinds of people: the haves, the have-nots and the-have-not-paid-for-what-they-haves" (Sarajit Das, Comment in "The Nation Reviewed" in The Monthly, April 2009, p. 10).

* i.e. the one in which consumption financed by borrowing is rife

I like the following pithy response to the question: what is Christian faith?

... Christian 'faith' is not mere acknowledgement of 'facts'. Faith is not even apprehension of a person. It is, however, the spiritual appropriation of relationship with that person. Therefore, to appropriate relationship with the person of Christ (which, because he is a person, must be done on his terms) requires spiritual re-creation.
(Matthew Brain, unpublished PhD, ch. 4: "Newbigin, Paul and Generation Y in Dialogue -- Part One: The Plausibility Structure", p. 31 )

As I said, I like this: appropriating a relationship with someone, which, because they are a person, to be reasonable, must be done on their terms. My "to be reasonable" flows from what I think is a key epistemological principle, which I got courtesy of T. F. Torrence, via Marty Foord, and in Torrence's book Theological Science. The principle is that in order to truly / reasonably know a thing, we must let it reveal it to us on its on terms.

As far as I can tell, this principle holds widely: it applies to rocks, to people, to animals, to sub-atomic phenomena, to the environment, to wine, to art ... the list goes on.

For example, if I really want to know my wife, I must let her be the person she is, including all the history, emotions and different ways of seeing, doing and responding to things -- i.e. different to me! -- that she brings. That is, I must not presume to know her; I must not project some cardboard cut-out of her and relate to this, rather than to the real person -- no matter how much the real person cuts across my view of how the world, or to be more specific, my view of how a woman or a wife, should be. (Ed.: I guess this is one of the not-so-small-challenges of marriage!)

Anyhow, there endeth my musings on what it means to know an object. On a lighter note, I have some cracker stories from my time with the five- and six-year-olds today. Hope to post them soon.

Cleanliness

When you wash," five-year-old M tells me, "it's important to wash behind your ears. Becuase if you don't, mushrooms grow there."

Our changing climate

People who have followed this blog for a while will know that I am uncertain about climate change: about its extent, about the 'science' by which conclusions are being drawn, about the way public (non-)debate is taking place and about what we should or shouldn't do in response to our changing climate.

Being uncertain is okay. But, of course, it's not a strong position for those in public life to hold. This article by Senator Stephen Fielding, about his recent fact-finding trip to the US, is worth a look. He writes pretty well for an engineer ;-).

Airborne anecdotes

I've just returned from a few days in South Australia. On our flights, a couple of quirky things worth sharing happened.

Perth-Adelaide: About halfway through the flight, an air-hostess announced that to pass the time, we, i.e. those passengers who wished to take part, could play a game. (Aside: Perth to Adelaide is about a 2.5 to 3-hour flight, so after the safety drill, the pilot's announcements, and the food trolley lumbering up and down the aisle, there isn't oodles of time to pass. Our flight had, however, been delayed for an hour, so maybe the air-hostess realised that the strung-out passengers would appreciate a pleasant distraction.)

Back to the game. The hostess announced that the names of five animals would be given, for which passengers would have to come up with the collective nouns. And, there would be a prize for the first person to get five correct answers. Soon, air-come-game-hostesses were distributing scraps of paper with the hand-written names of the five animals. These animals were: crows, rats, owls, wolves and insects (a broad grouping, but what the heck).

Before long, passengers were busily conferring -- sometimes across the aisle -- and scribbling on their pieces of paper. One passenger was even seen flicking through his pocket dictionary! When participants thought they had five correct answers, rather than raise their hands (old-school), they pressed the game-hostess call button, at which point the hostess would check their guesses, circle the incorrect answers (usually necessary) and furtively write a clue to help them get the correct answer. This buzz of airborne gaming went on for about half-an-hour.

The prize, shared between three passenger 'teams', was an item from the menu. Hardly the lofty loot that I'd dreamt of, but the chocolate bar my wife and I each ate was just the sugar-hit we needed to get through the final half-hour of the flight.

Oh ... and the five collective nouns? How about an online version of the game? I'll give a prize to the first person with five correct answers. No new-school online resources allowed (we've got to slightly simulate the conditions of being on board an aeroplane).

Second quirky incident: Adelaide-Perth flight: A young guy, who appeared to be in his twenties, decided that his white bath robe / dressing gown was suitable kit for flying in. I thought this was the stuff of buck's night's antics or low-grade TV comedies, but this guy was surrounded neither by raucous mates nor a TV crew. He was on is own. As a flight-crew member checked his boarding pass, I heard him mutter something about wanting to sleep on the flight.

On-board, smiles, chuckles and quizzical looks could be seen on passengers' faces as our white-robed friend made his way to and from the toilet. Oh, and in case you're wondering, he wore the robe over his normal clothing.