i was talking to a friend today who asked me "what on earth are all the challenges?"
Well, I challenged myself to No Meat May and as a matter of interest or inspiration for others I'm posting a photo and basic description of my food on Facebook every day.
My brother challenged me to post every day for ten days, an album cover relating to music which formed my musical taste. I'm not really that type of music consumer but I'm trying. I'm up to day 5 and 'm not sure what I'll be posting for the next five days....
A colleague challenged me to post photos of my dog for ten days, so 'm up to day two on that, it may become repetitive!
What are they foooor? my friend wailed. I don't know, I guess people in isolation are bored?
What kind of ten day challenge would you set for your friends? What do you want to see or know about their lives?
I like nosing around people's houses so I would challenge them to show me the 10 most used areas of their homes. Or, ten of their favourite objects. Or 10 of their favourite books - blimey, I might write a post and set some challenges!
ReplyDeleteSxxx
I really like the ten favourite objects idea!
DeleteI am bored but I am not sure I am up to setting challenges for everyone.
ReplyDeleteThat's fair. A lot of people are too anxious to be thinking of challenges!
DeleteI'm working more during the pandemic than before, so I'm behind in everything as it is! If I were to set a challenge, it would be pet photos. I wonder if I can find you on FB; I would love to see your Harry photos. The first one in this post is wonderful!
ReplyDeleteI'm working less but seem to have as much to do. I don't know how that works.
DeleteYou'd easily find me on Facebook, Kylie Tai (jurd)
I was excessively pleased with that top photo of Lucy and the b&W filter just made it cuter 😊
Oh no - I misidentified Lucy as Harry! Horrors! I should have noticed because their lovely noses are different :) Thanks for the FB info - I will look you up. I'll have to leave some sort of clue in your comments that it's me, because my FB account is in my real name.
DeleteJust at the moment (and usually if I am being truthful) I find life sets enough challenges without me adding to them.
ReplyDeleteI do love seeing photos of Harry though.
My life seems to pile on the challenges but I quite enjoy the distraction of these things IF it's something I enjoy. I ignore the ones I'm not interested in and I never nominate others
DeleteI cringe at some of the activities that are going the rounds. However, if people have fun so be it.
ReplyDeleteTell me one that makes you cringe, Red?
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ReplyDeleteNone. Life is challenging enough without taking on or imposing challenges on others.
ReplyDeleteyes, i get that. Fortunately my facebook challenges are a bit of fun
DeleteIf one of my cats had a nose like your dog, I suppose the weight would raise his back legs into the air, making it impossible for him to walk, and making it necessary for me to fit him with lead-weighted briefs.
ReplyDeleteI haven't eaten meat since 1983, so if I wanted a challenge, I suppose I would have to put my grains and beans aside and eat at McDonalds for a month. Seriously, I gave up eating meat for humanitarian reasons, but this didn't keep me from missing it for a decade or so, although I eventually got to the point that just seeing meat on TV makes me feel like barfing, the sight of meat having become an aesthetic disaster.
I've become almost vegetarian since my son and daughter lead the charge, that must be two years ago. I can't imagine being revolted by the sight of meat but maybe in ten or twenty years.
DeleteHarry's nose is long but his thighs are chunky so he manages to stay on the ground quite nicely :)
"I can't imagine being revolted by the sight of meat"
DeleteIf you come to think of it as the corpse of an animal that died, not so you could maintain health, but so you could enjoy a certain taste in your mouth, this will surely change. Of course, I must admit that I use dairy, and using dairy requires the death of male cattle, so I'm not consistent. To do that, I would need to become a vegan.
snow, i still use dairy but by eating a vegetarian diet I also eat a lot of coincidentally vegan food so my dairy consumption is down. I have almond milk in coffee and often substitute coconut milk in cooking.
DeleteWe are all inconsistent in some ways, i think the effort to be true to your values still counts for a lot
I would like to see pictures of their plants. Or, maybe old pictures of birthdays, weddings, or things they like in their house.
ReplyDeleteold photos are always interesting!
DeleteI hesitate to give anyone a ten day challenge - it could be rather onerous! But yes, ten favourite objects is a great idea. We love our two little stuffed koalas. And all our paintings and ceramics. And our lovely glass chess set. Glad to see the No Meat May challenge is going well.
ReplyDeleteI do love ceramics, Nick! and glass. i've somehow missed the appreciation for painting but I just bought myself a birthday gift of a print. I think at 49 I should have some art!
DeleteI love your brother's music challenge. That's not as easy as it sounds and has got me thinking!
ReplyDeletei have no idea how to answer it! I don't know what my taste was influenced by, it just is. I've been picking well known albums of the mid-late 80s
Deleteyou could do a post!
DeleteI have been thinking about it, but as you say it's not easy to do.
DeleteYou can never post too many dog photos Kylie. What would I set as a challenge? Stay off social media for a week. My friends would hate me.
ReplyDeletehaha, you remind me of that meme where they ask if you could stay in a house in the woods for a month without internet and win a whole lot of money.
DeleteI love my social media but everyone has their price!
I see all these challenges but I never partake as I really don't have the time. I post music and books as they fly by me and some photos and bits of knitting I'm working on or...
ReplyDeleteI guess I dislike the rigidity of the requests that seem to tumble into my feed at an alarming rate daily. :)
XO
WWW
I agree that these things are often rigid. As it turned out I finished neither the music challenge nor the dog one. If I'm tired or just not interested it's the first thing to go
DeleteI'm not keen on such challenges, but I would always enjoy knowing more about your religious background and how closely you adhere to the Army's moral conservatism (for example, their opposition to abortion and to equal treatment of LGBTQ people). Politically, I have no idea if they endorse candidates or lobby in favor of conservative values. You're the only SA member I've ever known, and from my position of ignorance of what they are like (as opposed to their courageous beginnings), it seems to me that you're probably more liberal than how I would envision the average member. I don't even know what their teachings are regarding heaven, hell, apparel, or property ownership. I picture them as being a plain and humble group that devotes most of its resources to working with the poor, and so I conclude from this that the average member comes from an impoverished background and/or is possessed of a keen social conscience. So, in summary, your religion is probably the thing that interests me most about you, and so it is about that which I would like to know more. I doubt that it would even be possible for you to tell me more than I would like to know.
ReplyDeleteHi Snow,
DeleteIt's taken me a while to get here but now that I am, I'll jump right in to answer. I wish that abortion never needed to happen but I uphold the right of women to choose how to proceed with a pregnancy. I once read an article which laid out very clearly the social conditions which could be met before it would be reasonable to oppose abortion and I have never been able to find it again but it took away any ambivalence I might have had. Rather than oppose abortion we need to make sure parents (especially mothers) are well supported, there needs to be easy access to contraception and sex education, higher minimum wages might be a help...
and thats just the things I can think of. It's a complex issue. have witnessed a termination up close and the devastation is palpable, those people don't need judgement.
I am disappointed in The Army's approach to the LGBTQ community. Our very top-down structure of governance is not helpful. The international leadership is afraid of affirming LGBTQ people for fear that it could be dangerous to members in less progressive places (parts of Africa come to mind) and the structure doesn't really allow for individual countries to have individual positions. We are slowly becoming more inclusive but the messaging is muddy. Some of our communities would be very accepting and others can be downright discriminatory. We are letting ourselves down with this. All forms of discrimination are anti-Christian in my book and we can't account for rogue individuals but we could have standardised, inclusive messaging.
I am vastly more liberal than the majority, how that comes about I have no idea. I think we have been caught up in the whole Christianity=conservative idea. There are liberals like me and I am noticing that our recent heads of training are progressive types which hopefully means that we are now training future leaders in a style that is more liberal and inclusive. I imagine it will take at least a decade to see fruit from that, by which time it may well be too late.
The doctrines state:
ReplyDelete"We believe in the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the body, in the general judgment at the end of the world, in the eternal happiness of the righteous, and in the endless punishment of the wicked."
I'm not sure how much those ideas are expanded by the organisation and my opinion is that "the endless punishment of the wicked" sounds harsh to my soft, liberal ears.
Apparel! ha! there are no teachings on apparel, nothing rooted in social justice, nothing regarding vanity, nothing at all, not in my part of the world.
I work alongside the manager of the Salvation Army Museum here in Sydney and he tells me that the leader of TSA in eastern Australia at one time made an order that no Salvation Army Officer was to wear a gold wrist watch. I have often been guilty of saying that TSA no longer has this ethos but actually, on a world scale we do. The most senior person in Australia lives in an average house and drives an average car. It is better than I can afford but it is not on par (not even close) with the kind of extravagance and grandeur we see in many parts of the worldwide church.
What I see in my local churches is an aging demographic (mostly white haired) with very limited incomes, these people are plain and humble. I'm not sure what the overall demographic is, there are pockets of better off, younger, more showy groups but again, I think even those are comparatively humble and plain. We don't come close even to say, some of the Anglican congregations in richer areas of Sydney.
Your questions are challenging me because I often view "the (modern) Army" in light of our history and in many ways it doesn't seem to match up but maybe my judgement is harsh. Even our top international leaders live fairly ordinary lives and the people in our congregations might not be the firebrands of the past but we still do have a social conscience, we still do have people whose lives have been radically changed through the love they have encountered in our centres.
I think I missed your question about political lobbying. We receive government funding for some of our work which I suppose carries with it some political obligations. At one point we were one of the agencies helping to run off shore detention. I'm sure there were Christian intentions behind that deal but realistically the government of the time used charities like TSA and the Red Cross to do their dirty work. We got out of that at the first opportunity. TSA does not openly endorse any political party, candidate or even a general "leaning"
You've made me think and I hope my answers satisfy some of your curiosity!