The results are in, or are they?

It was last Monday night, 4 November, my birthday. The Kansas City Chiefs football team was playing at home against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The rain had been falling in Kansas City all day. I had flown that morning from Sydney, and now, on arrival in England, I began to spend time with some of the other folks at the conference we were attending. Seventy Jews for Jesus leaders had gathered from around the globe. 

Actually,
I had left over 30 hours before. The double flights (one to California and the other to London) take about 24 hours in the air alone. 30 hours includes counting travel to and from the airport and layover time. Imagine the normal jet lag which hits most folks who fly 16,000 km. I’m a normal guy, so a bit of jet lag makes sense. 

My usual style of beating that jet lag includes a lot of walking or even exercise during the daytime on arrival. This allows the sun’s rays to shine on my arms’ skin, and the resultant natural melatonin released causes an adjustment in my body clock.  

But this is England in November, and the amount of sunshine was a bit limited. Combine that with the delight I had in seeing so many of my colleagues with whom I had not spent time in months caused its own energy to be released. No real sunshine. No real melatonin. No conquest of jet lag. 

The Chiefs’ game was to air at London time 1:15 AM on Tuesday the 5^th, and any person who wanted to be alert and participate in the conference which was scheduled to begin at 9:00 AM on the 5^th would hope for some good sleep. But I couldn’t wait for the results in the morning. After all, I’m a fan, and a fan must wear the team’s colours and cheer the team to victory in the moment, live. 

Tuesday the 5^th of November saw a substantial election take place in the US. As an American citizen who had voted by mail weeks before and who cared much about the campaign and its results, I wanted to know who won in local and national contests. The conference was terrific, and the time with colleagues was rich, but at 9:00 PM I had to go to bed. Tiredness won. I would have to see the results on waking that Wednesday morning. Perhaps it was the jet lag or maybe the energy of wanting to know the winners, but about 2 AM I awoke and thought I should check my computer for any updates. Needless to say, that was a mistake. The news was full of some states’ results. That caused me to sit up and watch for more. I couldn’t wait. The results were coming in; I wanted the play-by-play. And about 5 AM I lay back down. 

Not wanting to miss out. 

Sense and sensibility didn’t win on either overnight. Sleep is a natural and normal part of an animal’s day, and I finally caught up on my normal sleep the night of the 6^th. 

Oh, the Chiefs won their football match in overtime, no doubt caused in part by my horizontal cheering.

But now you might be wondering why I’m sharing these two episodes of not wanting to miss out with you.

Let me take you back further than last Monday. To a Friday about 2,000 years ago. It was in Jerusalem. A group of Jewish men and women were almost in shock. Their candidate for rank had lost. He was their hero, their leader, their teacher. Many fancied him to be the messiah, and messiah meant something different then. The shock that  hit these close followers of his took place just after a final meal together the night before. It was an annual feast, the feast of Passover. The whole Jewish world made pilgrimage to Jerusalem for this event, some stayed on for 7 full weeks for the next holiday. The city was abuzz with multilayers of activity. Lambs bought and sold, slaughtered and eaten. 

The folks who had that meal with their guy were surprised in just a short time. They left the upper room where they had celebrated Passover, and went to a nearby garden. It was there their guy (his name was Yeshua) was arrested. What? What did he do wrong? 

They were disoriented and surprised and angry. One of the followers (later they call them disciples or even apostles) named Peter took a sword and whacked the ear of the servant of the high priest. Yeshua, even during his troubles, reached out and put the ear back on Malchus’ head, healing him at once. Who does that?

The disciples were in shock; their guy was taken into custody. What did they do? They hid and stayed in hiding for days. Yeshua was given a death sentence. Wait a minute! Messiahs don’t lose; they don’t die, at least not before taking out Rome or whoever is ruining our Jewish lives.

 The trial took place after the arrest. They declared him worthy of death and the sentence was issued. A man named Simon carried the execution wood for Yeshua. The Romans put nails in Yeshua’s wrists to secure him to the pole, between two other criminals. He died. They all three died. And were buried.

That must be the end of the story. Who would wait for any further results then? That’s the end. No more hope. No more wishing. It’s over. 

The executioners put a big stone in front of the cave in which Yeshua was buried. They sealed it with a caulk agent and set two Roman military guards to ensure no one disturbed the burial site. 

The results were in. Hopelessness. Failure. Dejection. Again our religion failed us. 

Then Saturday and then Sunday and some women went back to the tomb hoping to freshen up the area with spices. They ran back to the gathering of the followers and told what they had seen. Peter and John ran to the tomb and found it just as the women had reported, but they didn’t find Yeshua. More disorientation, and now what?

Just hours later Yeshua himself appeared with the followers back in the upper room where they had hidden themselves. He presented himself alive; he ate with them; he showed them his hands and feet; they knew it was he! Alive!

Now, new results were in. The play-by-play was being rewritten right before their eyes. Now a brand new overtime began! 

A New Episode. A New Life. If you receive it. 

 

Judas, Israel and Wentworth

Bob published this on his Facebook page on 

October 18 at 6:38 AM 

My reply to the noise from The Conversation (https://theconversation.com/shifting-the-australian-embassy…) : My response: "Tony Walker calls our PM’s discussion of moving the embassy in Israel to Jerusalem “opportunistic”, ‘craven’, ‘chicanery’ and ‘a cynical exercise in vote buying.“ In what other non-capital cities does Australia have our embassy? Jerusalem has been the capital, the focus of the Jewish people’s history there for 3,000 years. Jerusalem has been her national capital since 1949. The Knesset (Parliament) and Supreme Court have been there since the country’s founding. Recognising the capital of a country as the home of our embassy is the proper respectful decision we should have made decades ago"

On Monday, in answering the same Conversation AND ABC report, the Honest Reporting website offered this view about Judas and anti-Semitism. https://honestreporting.com/antisemitism-judas-slur-on-australian-jewish-voters-wentworth-tony-walker/

It will be interesting to see how far this goes, and whether the ABC or Conversation will apologise for this. 

We are glad to be watchdogs along with HR in this regard.

Election 2016: Australia Decides

You have to wonder what system these election people use at home to keep track of things. The endless to-do lists written on a pad of paper must abound in their houses, if they can find them right next to the FAX machine and piles of carbon paper. I was astounded again this morning when I went to vote in my local polling station. Outside each venue were individuals representing each of the major parties and several lesser ones. They hand out pieces of paper to convince us to vote for their candidate. As if I'm going to read anything at the last minute. As if my reading that single sheet of information will sway my thinking.

Then I entered the building, after standing in the queue. A man with a yellow vest functioned as the concierge to the ballot issuing table, although he seemed more interested in chatting with everyone than getting us to the right table in a timely fashion. A woman sat with a book the size of a telephone book in front of her. That book contained the register of residents in our suburb. My wife and I sat in front of her and told her our names. We could have used any names. The woman sought no identification from us. She verified our address. She asked us "Have you voted already today?" We said, "No." She crossed off our names. With a pen. Maybe it was precise. And she tore off two sheets for each of us, each from a separate pad. The green ballot contained 8 names and we were instructed to label our preferences from one to 6 or one to 8; who can remember? In the past you had to number only one box above the line to vote for the party of your choice. Now you have to number at least six boxes.

We voted only once today. We could have gone into any of three polling locations within a few hundred metres, and used any of our neighbours' names and voted again and again. We could have gone to dozens of polling places throughout our suburb and a couple others. The system is archaic and paper-filled. What if someone had found out that I actually voted three or ten times? Would they have tossed all the ballots registered and duly processed all day at each of those locations? Our name is not on the ballot. The system is fraught with the danger of corruption. In Chicago the old line "Vote early, vote often" would certainly be applicable. Nothing would prevent this. Oh wait, maybe a computer might help. They have those in some suburbs in Australia, I've heard.

The whole system was explained the other day by Adam Gartrell here in the Sydney Morning Herald.

The white paper was the NSW ballot with about 150 candidates and was about a metre long. A metre. The booth where we were sent to fill out those two paper ballots measured significantly less.

Who thought this one up?
And we were told to vote for 12 people or 6 parties or 9 upper names and ...oh who can remember? 150 candidates. Luckily I had a pile of handouts to help me choose based on a photo and a short list of why the other guys are so bad.

If you were in the Victorian electorate of Higgins, you got shafted. See the ABC report here as the wrong ballots were distributed early this morning. People there were told to vote for the South Australian people, even though they lived in Victoria. Good luck sorting that out. Oh, if only there was a computer down in Higgins. You know, you can actually choose filters on a computer so that selections and de-selections are easy to count and to create. If only.

Come on, pollies. Let's get up to the 20th century. Maybe you could use the computers that used to work in schools, that have been retrenched and replaced with updated models. Bring them to polling stations next year. Stop the obvious chance for corruption. Stop the long queues. Stop growing the length of our ballots. Please. Thank you.