Book Review of The Weekend Effect - The Life-Changing Benefits of Taking Two Days Off, by Katrina Onstad

I really tried to like this book. It was a gift from a dear friend.

 

The book encourages everyone to steal back time into their busy lives to ensure weekend serve as down-time. It is a book that takes the 24/7 world and wrestles it back to weekday and weekend segments. There is an argument that productivity increases where work hours concentrate to a set time.

 

The book, at times, is little more than a conglomerate of patched together research pieces. Material of the author from firsthand account is very limited. The author’s sought experience is thin and is simply recorded.

 

What really killed it was a table at the end of the book. The table has the heading “Manifesto for a Good Weekend”. Under a sub-heading of “Seek beauty”, the author includes the tip:

 

“Stand outside a church on a Sunday morning and listen to the choir”

 

Get that, “stand outside a church”!

 

Now, that tip is wrong on so many levels:

 

1. Contrary the book’s objective: The book calls people to seize the weekend and squeeze it for all it is worth. If people have duly heeded the call to make time then why would they only stand outside the church – surely they have the time to go inside the church.


2. Acoustic: Show me one church; just one - I dare you, where the acoustics are better on the outside.

 

3. Beauty: There seems to be an implication that the beauty of a church environ starts and ends with a choir. It is plausible that by going inside a church people will find other items of beauty.

 

4. Health: The author is writing from a location where it snows. In my country, church days can be quite hot. It is plausible that standing outside to listen to a choir would be detrimental to one’s health.


5. Singing: A church with a choir is a church where people all stand to sing with the choir. Listening outside does not lend well towards singing outside. Listening inside lends well towards singing inside. For instance, you can sing inside amongst a mass of people and have your voice lost in the din. With my poor singing voice, I’m very happy to have my feeble contribution drowned out by others.

 

I’ll not be standing outside a church to listen to the choir. If I do find myself at the front of a church on a Sunday morning, it will be natural to make the step of going inside the church. Listening to a choir outside a church would be like going to a beach and not taking shoes off to feel the sand – all presence but no connection.

 

And, when inside the church, I’m sure that there will be more beauty than just the combined voice of a choir.

 

Shalom,

Ozhamada

 

Note: all links good as at 31 January 2018

Falling to the ground and multiplying

Travels recently North of Sydney had me pondering an Australian native lily’s means of reproduction. The lily puts up a stem with a flower bud. The flower buds and seed heads form. The seed heads seemingly are too heavy for the stem to hold. The stems fall to the ground. 

This places the seeds against the ground where there are ready to propagate.

The distance between the base of the plant and the seed heads is about a metre. It is common for four to five seed heads to fall in opposite directions such that the plant radiates out in different directions. It is not difficult to image that these plants, left unchecked, could populate a massive area in a matter of eight or nine seeding cycles. The stem seems to lose its vigour from the base as a means of supporting the seed head in good health. The stem seems to rot away before reproduction is complete.

The lily’s name is swamp lily. It’s scientific name is Crinum pedunculatum. I’m thankful to the Tilligerry Habitat for helping to identify the plant. The Habitat does not have any of the lilies within their boundary yet I found a location nearby where there were numerous lilies.

 Photo or lily

Photo of one of five seed heads on the lily.

The seed heads had fallen in a rough pattern: North, North-west, East, South and West.

The plant and its seed heads had me contemplating the Bible. Jesus recognised the wild seeding of plant seeds in explaining his own death. Jesus in dying for us produced many seeds. The seeds are the members of his church. Through confidence in the historical Jesus and through confidence that Jesus was God’s son we can be part of the process of growing his church.

Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. John 12:24 NIV

We should be like the Australian swamp lily - putting seeds out in our ministry with others. The seeds should fall in all directions – they should radiate out. We should not be afraid to reach in all directions from us. There is a vast space to be filled with the love of Christ.

Shalom,

Ozhamada

Note: all links good as at 2 January 2018

#australianflora #plant