The amazing joy of Christian friendship

One of the strangest moments I have had recently is realising that I have enjoyed this year a lot better than most of last year, even though I haven't really been doing many things that differently.

I work full time, I have been doing things at church, and have been hanging out with people every so often. But I have also found myself just enjoying things more.

Part of it, I am sure comes from becoming used to how life has been going. But that doesn't fully explain it. A lot of it probably relates to the deepening quality of the time I spend in genuine fellowship and friendship.

God has been merciful to me, and with a few different responsibilities, I have found that in this time, I have more time just to spend "with people".

A lot of hard work over the past few years has been bearing fruit, at church, and in other parts of life. The joys of seeing an old friend at City Bible Forum, or seeing how God has been working through the people at my church and growing them, have been so much fun. I can really understand now the whole idea of getting joy from seeing others doing well and serving our Lord.

Seek your joy in God. Then when you find it, it overflows to all.

Water, Water everywhere

The Rudd government is running around with a Razor gang looking to keep down government spending, so they can subdue what is still a fairly tame inflation result (historically), and then try not to cop the blame if a roll-back of Workplace reform leads to a real inflationary spiral.

Their first target is $643 million of Howard Government programs.

Considering that all government spending in Australia, whether it is done by the state governments or federal governments, is still spending (and affects the economy), perhaps some other wasteful spending should come under the microscope. After years of Frank Sartor saying that "a Dam is no good when there isn't any rain", the NSW Labor government decided to build a water desalination plant for $2 billion.

Since Dam levels have not ever been below the 30% trigger point from which this plant was supposed to be built, and are now at 64%, it may be tough to find a worse waste of government funds (especially if you only consider the start up costs) just to look tough to win an election.

Further to this, while water restrictions may sound great in theory, we have now had a year of rain, a year in which total water stored for Sydney has almost doubled, and yet, because of climate change models, the government has reneged on their promised relief thresholds for water restrictions.

So thanks to those scientific models, the Sydney water catchment could be full of water, the desalination plant turning greenhouse gases into surplus tap water we won't need (so I guess it might just pump back into the sea), and the people of Sydney paying increased water bills for the privilege, and they still won't be allowed to use a hose to wash their car on a grassy area.

What a relief to know that our government is looking after us.

Letter in the SMH 6/2/08

I have seen education graduates wanting to teach in public schools in "needy" subject areas, including maths and science, only to find they are locked out of all but the worst schools because they don't yet have any transfer points.

The transfer system is an antiquated and counter-productive system, run by an inefficient bureaucracy that rewards permanent teachers before casual teachers and prospective teachers. Who wants someone to teach at an underprivileged school just because it will get them a position in a "better" school?

This move is long overdue and should go a long way to restoring confidence in public schools.

Peter Denham Hornsby