Thursday, May 30, 2013

Interplanetary Travel (Not)

The photo (right) is not about interplanetary travel. My wife and I had been out for a birthday dinner, and were waiting in the car to hear the news on Radio Sonder Grense. She noticed the effect: the light of a street lamp falling on my beige jeans through a rain-spotted windscreen.

Monday, May 27, 2013

Favourite Hymn

Our Congregational hymnal contains nearly a thousand hymns. Needless to say, that's too many to sing, let alone to know the words and tunes. But sometimes there are words which are too good to pass over, in spite of a hymn not being known. Then one selects a known tune -- in this case (on the right) it would be anything "S.M." (Short Metre). This is a little-known hymn in our Church which is a favourite of mine (click on it to enlarge).

Friday, May 24, 2013

Blog Readers

My blog tends to remain fairly steady as the no. 3 Christian blog in South Africa. Depending where one looks, the statistics vary. Local statistics show ... call it a handful of readers in my home city, and two times as many nationwide. Beyond our borders, my majority readership is in overwhelmingly non-Christian nations.  OBSERVATION: My blog has been a ministry many times larger than my local ministry. Among other things, its intention is to be a source for students for the ministry. My public statistics are revealed by SiteMeter -- however, other statistics show much stronger interest. I deleted the name of a non-Christian nation in the image.

Thursday, May 23, 2013

City Print

Once in a while, I give a glimpse of local businesses / businesspeople on this blog. This is our friendly print shop, City Print, in St. John's Road. I was there today to print some songbook covers. This shop has never disappointed. You may click on the photo to enlarge to 100k. (I don't know what my software did with his legs).

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Die Alibama

I have a few photos of Laaiplek Harbour on my blog -- which lies about 150km / 100mi north of Cape Town. This photo shows Laaiplek Harbour after sunset. It was at Laaiplek where the legendary Alibama was stationed ("Daar kom die Alibama"). You may click on the photo to enlarge to VGA. I think I took this photo with a Samsung.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Dutiful Husband

Alas, husbands make some capital mistakes. My wife asked me to give away "the curtains in the wash-basket". Like a good husband, I repeated to myself: "wash-basket". And so, as it turned out, I gave away the entire contents of the wash-basket. This happened to be an expensive mistake. I gave away far more than curtains.

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Ascension Day Service



Tonight E. and I attended an Ascension Day service at our local Dutch Reformed Church (pictured). The Dutch Reformed Church might be characterised (simplistically) as "Afrikaans-speaking Presbyterian". The minister preached a plain, exegetical, evangelical sermon -- perhaps inclining more to Pentecost than the Ascension of Christ.

Inspiration In Visitation

I find that I am continually inspired by the people I visit in what one might think of as dire situations: the peace in peril, acceptance in bereavement, wisdom in confusion, and so on. Sometimes I feel that I receive more than I could give. It is not always like that, but very often Christians demonstrate something that is, as the Bible says, of the Holy Spirit and no common thing.

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Postliberalism

Every Christian knows what liberalism is -- or one would think so. Few know what postliberalism is -- yet postliberalism (or narrative theology) is huge, and it is typically unrecognisable to "the wo/man in the pew". It has a significant presence in our own area. Postliberal theology is today the end result of huge collaborative effort and refinement over generations. Now with this in mind, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a Roman Catholic priest -- his primary work, The Phenomenon of Man, was published posthumously. If one wants to see postliberalism in a cruder and earlier form, then read The Phenomenon of Man (1955). It is still sufficiently "crude" to be able to pick up its strands in later theology -- far more easily than if one should "begin at the end" and work backwards.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Stained Glass


I took this photo in the Anglican Church in Plettenberg Bay. What is it? It is sunlight falling on very thick walls, through stained glass. The black band is the Church's interior wall.

Monday, May 6, 2013

District Deaconess

I was speaking with a Congregational deaconess who bore responsibility for a far-flung district of her Church (pictured). She said: "My minister calls me up to find out how my district is doing. I just say fine, Reverend -- but there's no way I can really keep tabs on the district." OBSERVATION: With a near total lack of transport and telephones, she could not.

Saturday, May 4, 2013

Human Nature In Afrikaans

There are some wonderful words in Afrikaans, many of which English would not seem to adequately translate -- particularly those, I think, with insight into human nature: skaamkwaad, dronkverdriet, loskop, tameletjie ... In fact, some of these words get dropped into English so often that they have been adopted by South African English dictionaries (and some of my sermons).