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Monday, February 18, 2008 at 4:06PM 
Here you can see where it was cut to put the plate, pin, and screws in place. There is one other wound on the back of the leg where the bone punctured the skin either as the car hit me, or as I hit the road when falling from my bike.
Better days ahead! Sun is shining!
Monday, February 18, 2008 at 3:55PM 
This photo was taken on my trusty iPhone. In it you see my tiny little Sony Vaio UX 180 palmtop, a foldable (cheap) Bluetooth keyboard, and my Nokia e90 miracle phone! I can coonect the phone to the computer as a 3G modem, and the keyboard via Bluetooth to either the phone or computer to reply to emails etc.
It is quite frustrating not to have my regular laptop! But, this forms a good substitute system. I can browse the web, respond to emails and even post to my blog!
The only downside is.... Windows... Well windows and the fact that this rig requires a surface to put the notebook and keyboard on (not easy in hospital). Can anyone guess what book is currently under the keyboard?
Luckily I did a timemachine backup of my Mac laptop the day before the accident, so if the insurance pays out I should be up to speed in next to no time!
Monday, February 18, 2008 at 8:03AM I don't know how the other 'ministers / pastors / priests' feel about telling people what they do. I seldom tell people that I am a minister, unless they press and pry I tend to say something like 'I am a teacher', or ,'I train people for a living'. These are not untruths, but they do veil the truth of my ordination slightly.
The reason that I do this is twofold. First, I don't tell people what I do upfront because I find that when most people realise that they are speaking with a minister they cast me in the light of their own stereotypes. For some that is the stereotype of a holies than thou person who is obsessed with morality, the Bible and God (which is not entirely untrue - although I do hope that I don't come across that way!) For others it may be a scant reminder of some televangelist they have heard or read about. And so before we have even begun to relate I sometimes get the feeling that I have been judged and boxed, and that their responses are guarded and unnatural.
The second reason why I don't tell people what I do is because there are some times, I have come to discover, where I cannot do what is expected of a minister. My current state is one such example. I am in pain, I need to muster my resources to cope with my own feelings, emotions, fears, and struggles, and I would not be of much help as a counsellor or spiritual director to any other person at the moment. Sadly, my accident has left my world rather small (about the size of the bed to which I am confined). Sure, I shall be able to draw on this experience in the months and years to come, but for now it is best that I don't create an unrealistic expectation of what I can do.
I still pray for the staff and patients, the care givers and administrators, in the ward. I remember them before God and ask God to heal them, as I ask the same for myself. But that is a private matter - it is my joy and duty to do so as Christian, not as a Methodist minister.
So, I have not told anyone that I am a minister. I have, however, gently guided conversations towards prayer, faith, and the hope of God's healing power. And, it has been great to see how people have responded. A well to do gentlemen with a lovely young wife (no doubt a second wife) was with me in the ward last night. As we chatted I asked him about his faith, and about his surgery and how we was coping with the pain and slow recovery. As we chatted he spoke of how his life has changed through this experience in hospital. He spoke of a woman cleaner who prayed with him in the middle of the night a few days ago when his pain would not subside, and of how he has come to appreciate the value and blessing of life!
I just listened and asked a few pointed questions. It was glorious! It has been years since I have been able to do this with anonimity. Often people come to see me now because I have a title, I hold a prominent office in the Church, or because I have some influence to practically change their situation within the Church. This person, however, did not know any of that. He simply knows me as a reckless young man who broke his leg in a motorcycle accident. And so he talked, and we prayed.
I had a tough night last night. We are not sure why, but my fever has stayed at around 38-39 degrees. It could simply be the body reacting to the breaks in the leg. It could be that there is an infection brewing somewhere. This morning I fittedn my 'boot' and made my way to the bathroom with a walking ring to have a shave and a wash down. My blood pressure dropped and so did I. Luckily I passed out onto a chair. I am somewhat disheartened! I hate being so helpless! I hate being subject to a broken leg (of all things!)
My friend prayed with me because I am a fellow journeyer in this life that has an ebb and flow. He understands that sometimes things go well, and at other times it does not. We are just two people who are discovering things about ourselves, about our lives, and about our God. And that is good enough.
Saturday, February 16, 2008 at 8:55AM Thanks for the many good wishes after my bike accident yesterday. I was on my way back from a radio broadcast on Radio Pulpit heading back to the office to conduct a staff meeting. With the problems that my car has been giving me I decided to ride 'Mertyl' my lovely old orange Vespa (who now is no more...) Just near our college is a police depot where cars park on the pavement since there is no parking elsewhere. As I drove down the road a person came shooting off the pavement in his 4x4. He obviously did not see me since he rammed me on the left breaking my leg and sending myself and the Vespa to the ground under the huge wheels of the 4x4.
When I caught my breath I could see that my left leg was broken in two places, and that the bone punctured the skin. Thank God that when the accident happened a past student, Kemp Tube was on his way to the College. He helped to carry me to the pavement and got my bag (in which my Macbook Pro laptop was - it also did not survive the crash! Very sad!)
The guy who hit me loaded me into his car and took me to the local Medicross - not a very comfortable trip with the broken leg!
So, I went into surgery last night where they operated to fix the leg. I hope to be discharged from the highcare today and move into a regular ward tonight.
My neck, back, and arms are fine (just a few scrappes and bruises). My heart is so sore over the dead Vespa and the dead Mac laptop... But, I praise God that I am fine!
Friday, February 15, 2008 at 11:57AM I'm waiting to be taken to Pretoria East hospital for surgery... I was knocked off my lovely little Vespa this morning... She is worse off than I am. My left leg is broken and possibly a shoulder blade.
Please say a little prayer for me!
Thanks! Dion (blogging through thick and thin!)
Thursday, February 14, 2008 at 9:18PM 
There is a fair amount of animosity towards religion in some largely secular societies. Can we really blame people when religion seems to bring out the worst in so many of us - when religion fuels hatred among peoples, when people use their faith to persecute others, when religion is used as an excuse for bigotry?
Thursday, February 14, 2008 at 8:45PM This must be one of the most amazing music videos that I have ever seen... It reminds me a lot of the early iPod ads, but a lot more soulful with a bit of mind-bending artistry.
So, what's the moral of the story!? Well, it could be that you HAVE to wash your hair every day!
Technorati tags: New pornographers, Video, Amazing!, wash your hair
Thursday, February 14, 2008 at 2:49PM 
I remember a lecture by Prof Adrio Konig a number of years ago where he said to the audience "When you get to heaven you won't see me there" (or something along those lines). There were gasps from the more fundamentalist attendees at the workshop! After all, he is among the most Christian of people!
He then went on to explain that he did not believe that he would be going to some otherwordly 'heaven' as is fairly commonly expected among many Christians. Rather, he is a believer in the 'new earth' of which we read in Revelation 21.
It made a lot of sense to me, after all it was the Gnostics who suggested that we needed to escape this earth for something otherwordly, not the Christians, heck not even the Jews! Most Jews, and early Christians, believed that the fullness of God's plan for all of creation would be realised here on earth - the eschaton was a recreation of what God had invested God's self into. Jesus had redeemed and sanctified material reality in the incarnation, and had taken atoms, molecules, flesh and bone into the Godhead when he ascended from earth. How could God possibly abandon something as wonderful, as marvelous, and incredible, as this glorious earth! No, the new earth would a perfect earth, a recreated and perfected earth with all of the bounty and provision that God intended for us to have. Or at least that's what Prof Konig suggested.
What do you think?
Here's another interesting article on Heaven from NT Wright, a scholar and Bishop, among the most influential Christian thinkers of our time!
It is entitled "Christians get it wrong about heaven, says Bishop"
N.T. "Tom" Wright is one of the most formidable figures in the world of Christian thought. As Bishop of Durham, he is the fourth most senior cleric in the Church of England and a major player in the strife-riven global Anglican Communion; as a much-read theologian and Biblical scholar he has taught at Cambridge and is a hero to conservative Christians worldwide for his 2003 book The Resurrection of the Son of God, which argued forcefully for a literal interpretation of that event.
It therefore comes as a something of a shock that Wright doesn't believe in heaven — at least, not in the way that millions of Christians understand the term. In his new book, Surprised by Hope (HarperOne), Wright quotes a children's book by California first lady Maria Shriver called What's Heaven, which describes it as "a beautiful place where you can sit on soft clouds and talk... If you're good throughout your life, then you get to go [there]... When your life is finished here on earth, God sends angels down to take you heaven to be with him." That, says Wright is a good example of "what not to say." The Biblical truth, he continues, "is very, very different."
Wright, 58, talked by phone with TIME's David Van Biema.
TIME: At one point you call the common view of heaven a "distortion and serious diminution of Christian hope."
Wright: It really is. I've often heard people say, "I'm going to heaven soon, and I won't need this stupid body there, thank goodness.' That's a very damaging distortion, all the more so for being unintentional.
TIME: How so? It seems like a typical sentiment.
Wright: There are several important respects in which it's unsupported by the New Testament. First, the timing. In the Bible we are told that you die, and enter an intermediate state. St. Paul is very clear that Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead already, but that nobody else has yet. Secondly, our physical state. The New Testament says that when Christ does return, the dead will experience a whole new life: not just our soul, but our bodies. And finally, the location. At no point do the resurrection narratives in the four Gospels say, "Jesus has been raised, therefore we are all going to heaven." It says that Christ is coming here, to join together the heavens and the Earth in an act of new creation.
TIME: Is there anything more in the Bible about the period between death and the resurrection of the dead?
Wright: We know that we will be with God and with Christ, resting and being refreshed. Paul writes that it will be conscious, but compared with being bodily alive, it will be like being asleep. The Wisdom of Solomon, a Jewish text from about the same time as Jesus, says "the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God," and that seems like a poetic way to put the Christian understanding, as well.
TIME: But it's not where the real action is, so to speak?
Wright: No. Our culture is very interested in life after death, but the New Testament is much more interested in what I've called the life after life after death — in the ultimate resurrection into the new heavens and the new Earth. Jesus' resurrection marks the beginning of a restoration that he will complete upon his return. Part of this will be the resurrection of all the dead, who will "awake," be embodied and participate in the renewal. John Polkinghorne, a physicist and a priest, has put it this way: "God will download our software onto his hardware until the time he gives us new hardware to run the software again for ourselves." That gets to two things nicely: that the period after death is a period when we are in God's presence but not active in our own bodies, and also that the more important transformation will be when we are again embodied and administering Christ's kingdom.
TIME: That is rather different from the common understanding. Did some Biblical verse contribute to our confusion?
Wright: There is Luke 23, where Jesus says to the good thief on the cross, "Today you will be with me in Paradise." But in Luke, we know first of all that Christ himself will not be resurrected for three days, so "paradise" cannot be a resurrection. It has to be an intermediate state. And chapters 4 and 5 of Revelation, where there is a vision of worship in heaven that people imagine describes our worship at the end of time. In fact it's describing the worship that's going on right now. If you read the book through, you see that at the end we don't have a description of heaven, but, as I said, of the new heavens and the new earth joined together.
TIME: Why, then, have we misread those verses?
Wright: It has, originally, to do with the translation of Jewish ideas into Greek. The New Testament is deeply, deeply Jewish, and the Jews had for some time been intuiting a final, physical resurrection. They believed that the world of space and time and matter is messed up, but remains basically good, and God will eventually sort it out and put it right again. Belief in that goodness is absolutely essential to Christianity, both theologically and morally. But Greek-speaking Christians influenced by Plato saw our cosmos as shabby and misshapen and full of lies, and the idea was not to make it right, but to escape it and leave behind our material bodies. The church at its best has always come back toward the Hebrew view, but there have been times when the Greek view was very influential.
TIME: Can you give some historical examples?
Wright: Two obvious ones are Dante's great poetry, which sets up a Heaven, Purgatory and Hell immediately after death, and Michelangelo's Last Judgment in the Sistine chapel, which portrays heaven and hell as equal and opposite last destinations. Both had enormous influence on Western culture, so much so that many Christians think that is Christianity.
TIME: But it's not.
Wright: Never at any point do the Gospels or Paul say Jesus has been raised, therefore we are we are all going to heaven. They all say, Jesus is raised, therefore the new creation has begun, and we have a job to do.
TIME: That sounds a lot like... work.
Wright: It's more exciting than hanging around listening to nice music. In Revelation and Paul's letters we are told that God's people will actually be running the new world on God's behalf. The idea of our participation in the new creation goes back to Genesis, when humans are supposed to be running the Garden and looking after the animals. If you transpose that all the way through, it's a picture like the one that you get at the end of Revelation.
TIME: And it ties in to what you've written about this all having a moral dimension.
Wright: Both that, and the idea of bodily resurrection that people deny when they talk about their "souls going to Heaven." If people think "my physical body doesn't matter very much," then who cares what I do with it? And if people think that our world, our cosmos, doesn't matter much, who cares what we do with that? Much of "traditional" Christianity gives the impression that God has these rather arbitrary rules about how you have to behave, and if you disobey them you go to hell, rather than to heaven. What the New Testament really says is God wants you to be a renewed human being helping him to renew his creation, and his resurrection was the opening bell. And when he returns to fulfill the plan, you won't be going up there to him, he'll be coming down here.
TIME: That's very different from, say, the vision put out in the Left Behind books.
Wright: Yes. If there's going to be an Armageddon, and we'll all be in heaven already or raptured up just in time, it really doesn't matter if you have acid rain or greenhouse gases prior to that. Or, for that matter, whether you bombed civilians in Iraq. All that really matters is saving souls for that disembodied heaven.
TIME: Has anyone you've talked to expressed disappointment at the loss of the old view?
Wright: Yes, you might get disappointment in the case where somebody has recently gone through the death of somebody they love and they are wanting simply to be with them. And I'd say that's understandable. But the end of Revelation describes a marvelous human participation in God's plan. And in almost all cases, when I've explained this to people, there's a sense of excitement and a sense of, "Why haven't we been told this before?"
Wednesday, February 13, 2008 at 8:50PM Inquiring minds want to know. Is there any objective scale for the delineation goodness? I mean, in empirical terms, what is the difference between pretty good, and very good?
I know that it is probably a difference in dopamine and the number of neural connections... But, that simply won't cut it for me...
Any ideas? Inquiring minds want to know!
Wednesday, February 13, 2008 at 8:21PM 
Yikes, when I read things like this I wonder how threatened and insecure these religious officials must be!
I will always remember the analogy that my friend Dr Larry Kauffman told me about the different kinds of religious guidance that one gets. Some forms of religion (like that you will read about below) try to stop people from doing things, thinking things, or going places, much like a fence is used on a farm to keep cattle in... Have you ever watched a sheep straining its neck to get to a little patch of green grass just outside the fence!? That's me! I am that sheep! I hate being hemmed in! I don't like the negatively coercive effect of 'fences'. Such religion does not keep the sheep on the farm because they WANT to be there. Rather it keeps them there by force...
Larry said that good faith, deep spirituality, and sincere religion, should be so life giving, so rich with nutrients, life, and blessing, much like a well with sweet, satisfying, water - that the sheep do not want to go far from the well, because the well is the source of true life...
Fundamentalism often gets caught up in the 'thou shalt nots' of religion, whereas living faith is so busy engaging in true pursuit of discovering, sharing, and sharing life that there is no time (or inclination) to get into the 'nots' of life...
So, here's a sad story from boingboing.net:
Saudi authorities consider Valentine's Day, along with a host of other annual celebrations, as un-Islamic.LinkIn addition to the prohibition on celebrating non-Islamic festivals, the authorities consider Valentine's Day as encouraging relations between men and women outside wedlock - punishable by law in the conservative kingdom.
The Saudi Gazette reported that some people placed orders with florists days or weeks before Valentine's Day in anticipation of the ban, which is a regular occurrence.
"Sometimes we deliver the bouquets in the middle of the night or early morning, to avoid suspicion," one florist said.
Be my valentine! I hope you are loved, as you deserve to be, and that you receive lots of valentines hearts, valentines cards, valentines e-cards, and chocolates!! Oh, and if the 'religious police' come knocking, tell them you drink from a different well!
Technorati tags: valentines day, religious police, fundamentalism, fences or wells?
Wednesday, February 13, 2008 at 7:57PM I came across this incredible picture of the statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio being struck by Lightning!
This was the dramatic scene as the world's largest statue of Jesus was hit by lightning.
The bolt parted the thunderclouds over Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to strike Christ the Redeemer.
The statue is 130ft tall, is made of 700 tons of reinforced concrete and stands atop the 2,296ft Corcovado mountain overlooking the city.
Heavens above: The statue is struck during Sunday's storms
It was named one of the new Seven Wonders of the World in 2007.Sunday's storm caused havoc in Rio, felling trees in several neighbourhoods - but did not damage the statue.
This amazing photograph gives whole new meaning to the phrase "May God strike me with lightning if..."
Yikes, I am sure that a few superstitious persons made something more of this than just a fierce electrical storm!
Wednesday, February 13, 2008 at 7:35PM First, congratulations to Stephen for hitting number 1 on Amatomu! It's the spot you deserve my friend! I saw your post on Jenny's blog... No competition here my friend!
NOW, onto the reason for this post... Remind me never to park my bike near a tree again! You step into a shop for three or four years and when you come out this has happened to it! Crazy!
This picture comes from here. See a few more pictures of trees taking over the world!
Seriously though, the one thing this tells me is that biological life forms will always dominate human creations! Heck, leave anything we've made to stand for a few centuries and see what nature does to it...
