Category: Life

Gaza

by Ben Clapton, posted in Archive, Life

It is sad news that I hear that Israel is invading the Gaza strip. It is utter disbelief that I read that Israel have decided to suspend bombing in Gaza… for 3 hours a day. While this “humane” act is to allow shops to open, funerals to be held, and international aid agencies to evacuate the city, would it not be more humane to stop this bombing to allow shops to remain open, to allow the only funerals be for those who have died of old age, and for the international aid agencies to not be there because there is no threat?

The wondering pilgrim, the priest at my former church, posted a letter on his blog from The Rev. Charles Cloughen, Jr., who was able to speak with Suhalia Tarazi, director of the Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza. This gives us some idea as to what is happening in Gaza.

Dear Missioners,

I was able to speak to Suhalia Tarazi , Director of the Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza this morning.
I took notes and I am sharing with you as best I can her situation in Gaza.

“The situation is terrible. The injured are in their homes and unable to get to the hospital and the International Red Cross can’t reach them. Gaza is now divided into three areas. 20% of the staff including 2 doctors are now unable to get to the hospital. Unfortunately a bomb went off in Jerusalem Square, right outside the hospital , only 30 meters away and it blew a hole in the hospital wall.
One of the aid’s husbands was unable to reach his children. Later he discover that 1 child died and other members are all injured because a bomb destroyed a neighboring building.
The 19 year old son of one of the surgeons volunteered to work in the government ambulance. He was killed when his ambulance was hit by a missile. Three ambulances have been hit by Israeli missiles , five have died.
There is no electricity and no water. Fortunately the International Red Cross has provided Ahli Hospital with some food.
It is terrible and not safe to walk on the street.
After the invasion , Ahli Hospital on Sunday received 17 cases. Twelve were admitted to the hospital and 2 to government hospitals.
Today Monday morning 5 cases were received with 4 admitted for surgery. One doctor has slept in the hospital for the last 4 nights. Our staff is now working 2 -12 hour shifts, two shifts no days off. Streets are covered with blood. – bloody time.
Staff members have taken people in their homes, with 20-30 people for refuge. The ambulance driver has 80 living in his home.
We all have received leaflets and telephone calls ” you have to leave your home, we will attack it” Where to go for the 700,000 people in Gaza City?”

I feel very fortunate and blessed to be able to speak to Suhalia and I have promised her that I will tell her story and the story of the innocents. Thank you for all you are doing to circulate these messages. Please feel free to forward them the family and friends.

I offer her hope and encouragement and our commitment to help, with prayers and financial support. Remember tax deductible gifts may be sent to the American Friends of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, PO Box 240, Orange, CA 92859, or on line at http://www.americanfriends-jerusalem.org

I will continue to keep you up to date on this catastrophe happening in Gaza. If I can be of help please don’t hesitate to call or email me.

Peace, Love and Joy ,

Charles

The Rev. Charles Cloughen, Jr.
President Emeritus, American Friends of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem

I’ve been watching a bit of M*A*S*H during my holiday. Far too much, as the characters invaded my dreams last night. Perhaps that’s why this letter gets to me. In the 50 years since the Korean war, the 95 years since World War 1, we haven’t found a better way to deal with conflict that doesn’t result in casualties.

“To World War None.”

The Fruit of the Spirit

by Ben Clapton, posted in Archive, Life

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. – Galatians 5:22-23 (NIV)

When I was doing my music degree, I was introduced to the concept of Controlled Breathing. The idea was that through learning how to control your breathing, you can control your nerves. By taking long, slow breaths, it puts more oxygen into your blood stream, which means your heart doesn’t need to work so hard, so it slows down, which will lead to you not sweating as much, and feeling calmer. Likewise, if you take short, shallow breaths, your heart rate will increase, as it’s not getting as much oxygen and needs to work harder.

I was reminded of this while attending my first Salvation Army service. I had missed being ready to head along to my church (darned 9am start time), and my girlfriend (who is a Salvo), was going to her 10:30 service. I realised I had enough time to have a shower and get down there, so I decided to see what a Salvo service is like. The sermon was on love, being the third week of advent. But the line that caught my attention was “But the fruit of the spirit is… self-control.”

Even though I’ve heard this scripture many times, I guess my thoughts kinda leant towards that if you were faithful, the spirit would bring these things out in your life. However, I realised yesterday that it is infact the complete opposite. By showing these “fruits” we actually invite the spirit into our lives, and the spirit will help us to use these gifts for God’s work.

The reason I was reminded about my controlled breathing experiences was that it showed me that we don’t need to wait for the spirit to show up in order to do these things. We can be joyful, loving, peaceful, patient, self controlled etc by making a conscious decision to do so, and by doing that, we invite the spirit to be present in our lives.

I pray that we can have the courage to be loving to the unloved, joyful in dark times, peaceful in a violent world, patient in our busy lives, kind to those who are unkind, good to the evil ones, faithful in a sceptical world, gentle in a harsh world, and self controlled where we are tempted. Amen.

The Death Penalty

by Ben Clapton, posted in Archive, Life

My mind has been taken up with the issue of the death penalty for the last little while. It has obviously come about as a result of the reports of the death by execution of the 3 “Bali Bombers.” The problem I have been having comes in two parts – what does my Christian faith say about it, and why did the Australian Government wait until after their execution to say that they will push for an international moratorium on the death penalty? Continue reading “The Death Penalty” →

What Obama’s Win could mean for music

by Ben Clapton, posted in Archive, Life, Music

Barack Obama is the President-Elect. This we know. But, what could this mean for music? This is what I look forward to seeing over the next little while. In this period of economic crisis, it was Obama that the musicians went to, not McCain. The Barack Obama Music Coalition includes artists such as David Crosby, Joanna Newsome, will.i.am, Morrisey, Wilco and The Greatful Dead as supporters of Obama. His policy towards music and the arts will come later. What I want to look at in this post is what musicians can get from Obama’s campaign so far. Continue reading “What Obama’s Win could mean for music” →

Letter in the Australian

by Ben Clapton, posted in Archive, Life, Music

Yesterday, I sent letters to The Australian, the West Australian and the Age, and I know that it got published in The Australian (I don’t receive the West or The Age at home – if anyone can fill me in on whether it got published or not, I would be most appreciative.

Here’s the letter that I sent in:

Who can remember who held the world record for the 100m before Usain Bolt? What was their time?
Who was the guy that took 7 gold medals in the Olympics? Does it matter any more now that Phelps has 8?
Sports records tumble all the time, and we only remember who has the fastest time, the most medals. We don’t remember who came second. We don’t care. Yet despite the temporary nature of sporting success, Australia is willing to pour $168 million dollars into the AIS, where as the longer term investments in our nations culture, that of music, is cut from a paltry $2.5 million to 0.
Music and the Arts is what makes up Australia’s culture. Even in sports! Imagine if there was no music. We wouldn’t be able to proudly sing “Girt by sea” – even if we could remember the rest of the words. We wouldn’t be proudly singing our footy team’s club song. We wouldn’t have Kylie, or Barnsey. Without music, I’m sure Peter Garrett wouldn’t have had an opportunity to get into Parliament. Peter, please reconsider your decision, and prove to us that you don’t hate the Arts.

And the Aus’ edited version:

Who can remember who held the world record for the 100m before Usain Bold? What was his time?
Who was the guy that took seven gold medals in the Olympics? Does it matter any more now that Michael Phelps has eight?
Despite the temporary nature of sporting success, Australia is willing to pour $168 million into the Australian Institute of Sport, where as the longer term investement in our nation’s culture, through funding for music education is cut from $2.6 million to zero.
Music and the arts is what makes up Australia’s culture, even in sports.
Imagine if there was no music. We wouldn’t be able to proudly sing “Girt by sea” – even if we could remember the rest of the words.
Without music, I’m sure Peter Garrett wouldn’t have had an opportunity to get into parliament.
Peter please reconsider your decision, and prove to us that you don’t hate the arts.

I Also got a cartoon, with an athlete holding his olympic gold medal, and an orchestral violinist holding a symphony orchestra cd, the violinist saying “Mine’s bigger than yours.” Did very well to pick up that I’m a violinist. Perhaps he googled me and found my website?

Remember to sign the petition, and write to Peter Garrett, and keep the letters coming into the Aus, and other newspapers. We need this to not disappear from the public eye. Let’s make Peter Garrett come out and say something, as opposed to hiding in his office.

On This Day… Save ANAM

by Ben Clapton, posted in Archive, Life, Music, On This Day

I’m taking a slightly different tack for this post. I’m calling everyone to help spread the word. The “Honorable” Peter Garrett, AM, MP, former lead singer of Midnight Oil and now Federal Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, as announced that the Federal Government will cut all funding to the Australian National Academy of Music. ANAM is Australia’s Premiere training institution for classical musicians. It is to classical musicians what the Australian Institute of Sport (which has produced many of Australia’s greatest athletes) is to sport. After being established in 1994 under Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating, over the years the federal government has given unchanged financial support to the effect of $2.5 million over a number of years. For the year ending 31 December, 2005, ANAM received a total income of $2.9 million. For the financial year 2005-2006, the Australian Institute of Sport received $168.6 million from the Federal Government alone, with a total operating income of $190.5 million.

It makes me sick. The AIS operating income for 2005-2006 could run ANAM for 65 years, on its 2005 income. From just 1 year!

ANAM feeds its musicians into Australia’s orchestras. Of the 7 major Symphony orchestras in Australia, ANAM Woodwind players hold 7 principal positions. Without this training institution, Australia’s musicians will look elsewhere for their training, elsewhere being overseas, where they are more likely to remain. If there is no training institutions in Australia, the quality of Australian orchestral playing will also drop.

What can we do?

We need to let Peter Garrett know that this decision is a disasterous one, and is not a decision the Australian people will stand for. I have already written to Peter Garrett, voicing my opposition and asking him to reconsider, and I encourage you to do so as well at his Parliament House page. You can also E-mail the Shadow Minister for the Arts, Steven Ciobo. You can also sign the online petition started by ANAM. If you Have Facebook, you can join the groups “I Support the Australian National Academy of Music” or “Save ANAM” Getting the word out there is also important. I encourage anyone who has a blog to write about this. If you’ve got Twitter, or facebook, write about it. Link back here – I will add a link to the post below. Get as many people as we can knowledgeable about this.

For the next week, the first paragraph of every “On This Day…” post will be linking back to this one, encouraging everyone to read about this issue, and to take action.

For a couple of videos, we have a documentary about ANAM, so you can understand a bit more about this fantastic institution, and also a video blog about this topic by Perth Musician Alex Millier.

Links

Alex Millier has written two posts about this issue, and I’m sure will write more. He’s also the one that created the video above.

On This Day… October 27

by Ben Clapton, posted in Archive, Life, Uncategorized

Today we look at perhaps the world’s first virtuoso. His skills on the violin brought many to think that he had conspired with the devil to achieve such feats. His compositions today are still some of the hardest ever written for the violin, and require great technical mastery of the instrument. Niccolo Paganini, born on this day in 1782. Continue reading “On This Day… October 27” →

Money Money all around, and not a cent to spare

by Ben Clapton, posted in Archive, Life

Today is Blog Action Day, in which over 10,000 blogs have signed up pledging to write about this years topic, which is Poverty. The goal is to raise awareness about this issue, in the variety of forms that each blog comes in. It’s taken me a little while to figure out what I shall write about on this blog (you can check out my work blog posts at the Churches WA Website). Continue reading “Money Money all around, and not a cent to spare” →

Tag, I’m it!

by Ben Clapton, posted in Archive, Life, Uncategorized

I got tagged in a meme by Anna Hill, which I’m most grateful for, not only for the hopefully increased traffic to my website, but also because I’m currently sick in bed with a cold, and this allows me to distract myself with something. Basically, the idea is to share 6 things that people don’t necessarily know about me, and then to tag 6 other people for them to share as well. Continue reading “Tag, I’m it!” →