"Ours"

"Ours"

(#musingatlunch)

Ours is a country
Where the leaders are too sick in the head to notice that they are sick in the head
Where investigative journalists are too afraid to investigate
Where the people are too ignorant to know that they don't know
Where the Christians are too complacent to be the salt and light
Where power is too concentrated to be powerful
Where service is too private to be public
Where production is too foreign to be productive
Where justice is too partial to be just
Where law enforcement is too brutal to be lawful
Where deportation is too arbitrary to be legal
Where service is too slow to be delivered
Where goods are too expensive to be good

But

Ours is also a country
Where Grace is sufficient
Where Mercy abounds
Where Beauty surrounds
Where Greatness awaits
While citizens sleep in
Where Light seeps in
Where darkness recedes

Where Change comes
One home at a time

Lessons from the Dream-job : Pre-Conceived Children

By GDW

One of the greatest things about the relationship between our Heavenly Father and us, is that He knew us before the foundations of the earth. We aren't an accident of his design. We aren't an after-thought. And because of this He desires that as parents we also plan and consider our kids before we have them.

The best compliment we could give to our kids is that we thought of them before we could conceive them. Years before I had a chance to have him I thought of (imagined) my son Waiambun. I imagined the fun I'd have with him, the methods I'd use to teach and discipline him. My son (and Lord willing, his siblings) would grow up knowing that I brainstormed—and even settled on some—names for them years before they were born.

Whilst we dont have the capacity to foreknow our kids, we can at least consider the time to have them, who to have them with, and how we'd raise them. So that one day we can genuinely tell them that they were on our minds before they were in their mother's womb. That they were pre-conceived...

And that they are a deliberate result of their parents' love, rather than an accident of lust.

Heavenise day!

National Budget and Stewardship

What the people need to see is huge spending on things that affect them, and those things actually happening.

We had a huge deficit budget this year, and we expected a lot of spending. But there isn't much to show for it....except perhaps if we look into our politicians' private finances and their private companies...

For next year we'll have another deficit budget with more expected spending...and I'm more than certain we won't see half the fruits of that spending.

That we can't manage small things is a scary fact....and that we can't manage big things is an even scarier truth.

#PNG #Budget #stewardship

Making the Time

Lessons from the #Dreamjob

Back in college I decided that I would never grow fond of using two phrases: "I'm busy" and "I don't have time"...no matter how true they might seem. I saw my friends get fond of those phrases and it just didn't come across well.

Because the reality is we're never too busy and we never "don't have time". We just CHOOSE different priorities. And along with those choices, we consequently choose different CONSEQUENCES. And we ALWAYS have a choice of consequences. Sometimes it's the severity of consequences that gives us the impression that we "don't have a choice". Choosing that severe consequence is also an option.

You choose the consequence of a successful career when you give all your time to it. The consequences could include a stressed out family that misses you. Or you could choose the consequences of being a dedicated family man; and suffer the loss of an opportunity for a promotion, a raise or some business opportunity. The economists call it "opportunity cost".

When you say "I'm busy" you're actually choosing that thing which makes you "busy" over that which now seeks your attention.

So next time your kid asks you to hang out with him, think carefully before you tell him "I'm busy" or "I don't have time".

Food for thought.

Heavenise weekend!

G

Lessons from the #Dreamjob

By GDW on Facebook

I'm a dad now. So apart from my "tokstrets", expect the usual totally biased, boastful and proud opinions about my kid, and the irrational partisan self-promoting evaluations about my performance as a parent, and the domination of baby pics on my wall.

I used to wonder why fb parent friends posted constantly about their kids. Now I have one and I totally get it. Everything else in life fades in comparison to being a parent. The thrill of being completely relied on for life itself, the smile of contentment when they lie in your arms, or fall asleep safely on your chest, beats riding the best roller-coasters or enjoying the best sights in the world (and I've been to some).

This is the greatest wonder of the world. And though I may thrive to be good at many things, I pray I may perform this job so well that my kid can confidently say that I make a great dad.

For every other vocation fades in significance, and no other can be as important in this bankrupt world, as being a father.

Heavenise night.

Ganjiki

Reshaping Culture to Accept Degenerate Concepts

On Glee

(With respect to any gay friend)

This "Glee" show on EMTV is sick!

Who the heck is is sponsoring it? The themes are not PNG-relevant. It's a show thats made by Americans, for Americans, of Americans.

But of course this is exactly how modern thought (amoral/post modern worldview) has enslaved the world; through drama, song and entertainment. Reshape the mindset and you reshape culture.

The themes are sickening, notice:

- free love and sex in the teen years
- the "beautification", normalization, and glorification of homosexual relations
- a short-sighted purposeless life that seeks meaning in temporary pleasures, iow VANITY.

I know theres a lot of crap on EMTV but the show is an insult. What's next, "Modern Family" and "Queer as Folk"? We're on a vicious spiral of moral degradation and we're making it worse by airing shows with these themes on prime time TV,where the kids, who are already lost because of absent parents and who are still forming an identity, are watching. They're still collecting ideas about what's ok and what's not.

Glee is sick. And even though this may be a vain call:

I say it pull it off the air.

God Bless PNG.

On Soldier Brutality

On Soldier Brutality
By Ganjiki

So soldiers from Taurama blame medical students for instigating the weekend incident (per today's papers). And they do it through a statement passed through colleagues to the press.

They would win substantial respect if the men involved on both side came out straight out and said "I did it". Don't pass a note to the press. Rock up in front of the cameras and say "this is what happened last Friday....and I'm sorry for my part in it." 

Be the better man.

But regardless of what happened on Friday, what happened on Saturday and Sunday is ALL on those soldiers. And it is completely inexcusable.

Medical students didn't drag those soldiers from Taurama to 3mile. The students didn't go over and fill the truck tanks and supply the guns to the soldiers, order them into the vehicles and send them to MedSchool. That was all those rogues in uniform. 

The soldiers CHOSE to do what they did on Saturday and Sunday. No one held their hand. No one invaded their dreams like in "The Inception" and plant a thought to do it (well no human being anyway). In their conscious mind they decided to go on the rampage. Those rogues did it.

[Just like they did on Manu Service Station, Malaoro Market, Aviat Club in Lae, and dare I say when they escorted Belden Namah when he stormed the Supreme Court. It was all on them.]

They cannot escape the responsibility for their actions. What they did on the weekend was instigated and incited—in the purest sense of those words—by themselves. With independent freely-functioning minds.

And the sad thing is: their superiors let them do it. And this is where PNGDF has failed. It has failed to instill true discipline in the deep crevices of the minds and hearts of these soldiers. True discipline is self-discipline—where it's neither the fear of punishment nor the anticipation of reward that makes one do the right thing. But it's the sense of self-respect and the awareness of one's own dignity that keeps him from doing anything that attracts the contempt of society. 

The PNGDF has failed in ensuring that ALL its soldiers are not just adult bodies containing a toddler's stamina and mindset—a mindset that seeks its own all the time. It failed to ensure that the emotional intelligence of ALL its members was high enough to withstand the urge to go on a rampage against innocent unarmed civilians, with high-powered rifles. It failed to deny those soldiers access to firearms in peacetime. It failed miserably to ensure that it recruited, trained and maintained men who have the highest regard for their uniform, the flag, the nation, and the civilians whom they swore to protect. Any man who does not have that high regard, nor the discipline to live up to that regard, deserves not the uniform that this nation gives to him. 

The PNGDF owes it to the People of PNG to ensure that ONLY respectable self-disciplined men and women occupy its ranks. It owes it to the People to expunge itself of the elements that are not worthy of its label—elements that bring disrepute and contempt to its name. Elements that seek to wear the uniform for all the wrong reasons.

This is where the true strength of PNGDF and its leaders is tested. In whether it is able to pick itself up and regain the trust of the People; or whether it continues to pay lip-service about discipline in an obviously "lack-of-discipline" force.  The people need to see the line being drawn and rogue soldiers court-martialled, criminally convicted and kicked out, and the rest continuously trained and disciplined so such behavior becomes less and less probable. 

Otherwise the People will be entitled to think little or nothing of the PNGDF.

Heavenise day!

GDW