Did you know?

New creche at Gap High?

I found out something interesting today when I asked the class what their favourite thing to do is when they get home from school. Eating is not a surprise but sleeping is. Some of the students go to bed when they get home. Perhaps we should have cots at school and we can give them a class of warm milk before they have a little nap during lunch times.

G’day

Claresse, Raha, Sasha, Miriam, Lawerence.

Foxhole Manifesto: http://www.campfire.net.au/node/145

We watched this slam poem as an introduction to spirituality class. This poem has an interesting ending. The poet describes his god as being like a repair man who you can take your broken soul and fix it no questions asked. The poet then declares that he doesn’t even care if his god doesn’t exist. The students in my small group thought that was strange because normally we only really believe in what we believe. Perhaps the poet believes this god but half expects to have his god disproved later on. This would make sense since he has believed in a variety of gods already, like a Father Christmas god and a crises god.

Sharing Beliefs

Crusades misrepresent Christianity

Students shared their belief and non belief in God. It was really good to discuss our beliefs without fear and with respect towards each other. Some students shared they believed that God was ‘up there’ pointing upward and that they could talk with him. God not only listened but helped in their lives. Another student shared that they prayed written prayers according to their traditional teaching. This reminded me of the many prayer, poems and songs recorded in the Psalms (in the Bible). I shared that the Bible was authored by God and this means that we can safely pray the Psalms, even the ones that are angry.

Extremes don’t always represent a religion

An excellent observation we made was that religions are not always correctly represented by the people of that religion. For example Buddhism has a high view of life and yet in Burma those in authority aren’t letting aid come to those who need it most. The Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition do not correctly represent Christianity or its teaching.

Challenges to Science and Faith

Clever but not human

Humans appreciate beauty

Faith is challenged by tragedies like the earth quake in China and the devastation in Burma, poverty in the third world is hard to reconcile with a loving God.

We also discussed the challenges to both Atheism and Faith. Science is challenged by sunsets and love. For example my dog did not appreciate the sunrise this morning when we were walking. Monkeys are clever and they are like us but they are also very different. They don’t do art, music or appreciate beauty like we do.

We are meant to image God

Some of the students shared that they believe we are like God, made in his image. We have a free will which we are to exercise so that we become more like God. The Bible describes the qualities that we are to develop in our lives:

Galatians 5:22-23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.”