i forget important stuff all the time and have a brain filled with the stupidest trivia ever. the Bible says that if your eye offends you, pluck it out; if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off; i sometimes think i need a lobotomy.
dorfl the golem, in terry pratchett's novel feet of clay, says, "either all days are holy or none are". i think of paul every day, with every abba song, with every doug anothony all-stars moment, with every chorus of the time warp, with every thought about going to the gym or playing squash.
so (belated) virtual hugs from me too, if you would like some.
Friday, July 28, 2006
Saturday, July 15, 2006
... in the morning
i've been really tired. why that is, i'm not sure - i don't think i'm doing any more or less than i ever have before, and at 31 years of age i hate to start playing the "i'm not as young as i used to be" card. i'm up early, i plan for a snooze. i don't go to bed much later than i ever have before, but this week, i'm doing something i haven't done in a long time - i'm planning to be in bed by 9:30 each night. (except tuesaday night and thursday night - i have commitments with Bible study those nights!)
so i went to bed about 7:30 last night, and at about 8:30 (i think) my mother called with my health fund information for me to be able to do my income tax return. when i answered my mobile, i was shaking so hard it was almost like i was having an epileptic fit! i thought, "wow! it's really cold..." my housemate alex thinks i was in the grip of a fever.
i don't think i've ever had a fever before, not like this. i've never shaken so hard before from shivering, and while i don't mind shivering (it can feel good if you're in the wrong frame of mind, i guess...), this was rather more... energetic than i've ever felt before. not something i'm terribly keen to experience again.
it has made me think, though, that perhaps i treat my body with a little more contempt than it deserves. i've never had a terribly high self-image, for a combination of a bucketload of reasons, and one way of dealing with this has been to hold my flesh pretty much in contempt. i know that come the resurrection i'll get a new body, one that's perfect, one that won't be subject to the whimsy and decay of the sinful nature this side of glory. knowing that means that (in my sinful way) i think less of my body than i should.
i have a book by josh mcdowell called his image my image, which i grabbed in a moment of introspection some time back. i think, now that i have some time factored into my daily travel schedule for directed reading (as opposed to entirely recreational reading), i'll pick it up again and have a read. maybe walk up to where i get the bus to the city from, instead of getting another bus to that one. start taking a bit better care of myself.
crikey... it almost sounds like i'm beginning to be concerned about my health.
so i went to bed about 7:30 last night, and at about 8:30 (i think) my mother called with my health fund information for me to be able to do my income tax return. when i answered my mobile, i was shaking so hard it was almost like i was having an epileptic fit! i thought, "wow! it's really cold..." my housemate alex thinks i was in the grip of a fever.
i don't think i've ever had a fever before, not like this. i've never shaken so hard before from shivering, and while i don't mind shivering (it can feel good if you're in the wrong frame of mind, i guess...), this was rather more... energetic than i've ever felt before. not something i'm terribly keen to experience again.
it has made me think, though, that perhaps i treat my body with a little more contempt than it deserves. i've never had a terribly high self-image, for a combination of a bucketload of reasons, and one way of dealing with this has been to hold my flesh pretty much in contempt. i know that come the resurrection i'll get a new body, one that's perfect, one that won't be subject to the whimsy and decay of the sinful nature this side of glory. knowing that means that (in my sinful way) i think less of my body than i should.
i have a book by josh mcdowell called his image my image, which i grabbed in a moment of introspection some time back. i think, now that i have some time factored into my daily travel schedule for directed reading (as opposed to entirely recreational reading), i'll pick it up again and have a read. maybe walk up to where i get the bus to the city from, instead of getting another bus to that one. start taking a bit better care of myself.
crikey... it almost sounds like i'm beginning to be concerned about my health.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
... harvesting
i was reading my Bible this morning, trying to ingrain a (good) habit of making the train ride from the city to work my Bible-reading time, and hit upon the passage in matthew about the workers harvesting in the vineyard. the boss of the vineyard hires some guys at 6am and comes to a workplace enterprise agreement (is that what they're called?) with them for a denarius for the day's work. he gets some more guys around 9am, then noon, then 3pm, then finally at 5pm! all done, he starts paying them from the most recently-hired (the 5pm guys) and gives them a denarius, and when he gets back to the 6am-starters they get only a denarius too. disappointment all round for those guys, who seemed to be expecting raises.
the point of the passage is that the pay is up to the master of the vineyard, not the workers. it would have been understandable that jews who kept the torah should be upset that Jesus starts saying people need to repent and get right with God and thus be on even footing with "the righteous". imagine how they'd have felt knowing that serial killers and rapists and murderers - gentiles, the lot of them! - would be getting into heaven too!
it reiterates to me just how little i see the world from God's point of view and persist in using my own frame of reference. idiot that i am.
the point of the passage is that the pay is up to the master of the vineyard, not the workers. it would have been understandable that jews who kept the torah should be upset that Jesus starts saying people need to repent and get right with God and thus be on even footing with "the righteous". imagine how they'd have felt knowing that serial killers and rapists and murderers - gentiles, the lot of them! - would be getting into heaven too!
it reiterates to me just how little i see the world from God's point of view and persist in using my own frame of reference. idiot that i am.
... journalling
to whom it may concern ;)
i'm not going to post my journal until 22 july, owing to the delay in receipt of it at the last exchange. hopefully, it also allows time to return home, or send me an appropriate address to send it to.
cheers :)
i'm not going to post my journal until 22 july, owing to the delay in receipt of it at the last exchange. hopefully, it also allows time to return home, or send me an appropriate address to send it to.
cheers :)
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
... spicks and specks
please
please
please
if anyone i know ever hears me do what adam richard just did on spicks and specks (abc television, wednesday nights at 8.30), please shoot me.
please
please
if anyone i know ever hears me do what adam richard just did on spicks and specks (abc television, wednesday nights at 8.30), please shoot me.
Friday, June 23, 2006
... discussion
had a somewhat lively Bible study on John 3:36 this evening, with a consideration (among other things) of the question, "what does it mean to have 'eternal life'?"
there are a number of pat answers one can give without really getting to the nuts and bolts of our own personal understanding of what eternal life means. "a full relationship with God"... "no more tears, no more pain"... "being the person God meant for me to be"... "to live forever and never die"... are all examples of the kinds of answers i've heard over the years, with first leaning towadrs a more thoughtful understanding of eternal life, and the last leaning towards a more basic (and slightly flawed, perhaps, unless Jesus comes back in our lifetimes) understanding of it.
my own understanding of "eternal" is less a quantitive one and more a qualitative one, i hope. certainly, the eternal encompasses an infinity of temporal space, in which one could imagine replaying the whole of human history and seeing every event in minute detail, treating time as a river one could get out and wander up- and downstream of. i think, though, that my own ability to grasp the concept of the true nature of the eternal is inherently flawed and incapable of the most basic grasp of it. i remember a quote from somewhere, "if the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we'd be so simple we couldn't." i think it's a good quote because it underlines our limited view of the world around us. all that i could possibly ask or imagine in this life will barely fit into a fob pocket in my jeans in heaven (assuming we still wear jeans in heaven!) and the concept that everything could all be rolled up in such a way for us is laughable.
God is an energetic, creative God - if he had been content in himself to be simply eternal and self-relating, he need never have created us at all. it is because he loves us and desires that we be in relationship with him that he deigned to breathe life into the dust of the ground and call it "made in our image". God is love - and with that powerful, revealing-himself-as-father love comes an anger when his children do the wrong thing that is equally awesome, or awful. my parents were angry when i did the wrong thing because they love me and wanted me to do the right thing, and how much more than my parents does God love me!
my understanding of eternal life is that it is a restored relationship with God - to pray and be heard, to see his hand in the world around us, to find his character in my brothers and sisters, to see his image in the faces of strangers, to have his Spirit in my heart - it is not a restoring of our pre-fall status per se, i think, but a moving-on from that. adam had God's breath in his nostrils, but i have the Holy Spirit inside me; similar but different. God met with adam in the cool of the day, walked in the garden with him, but God is always and ever with me now and i am always and ever now with him: God has a place for me in his house, he has called me a son, and what he speaks is.
i do not enjoy the fullness of this restored relationship yet, because i still am in the world. sin continues to exact its toll in my life, reduced though it is according to God's grace, but what i suggested in Bible study tonight was this:
eternal life is a little like having a backstage pass at a concert. it's great to be at a concert or performance. everyone's there to have a great time, enjoy the show. some people have queued up for ages, some people had their tix as gifts, or won them in some competition. some are in the mosh pit, some are in the nosebleeds. everyone is there, enjoying themselves, the show, the company, and most are not thinking about what will happen after the show. they revel in the moment because, were they even able to admit it, the moment is all they have.
for those who have backstage passes, however, the concert is an amazing precursor to the freedom and privilege of going backstage. meeting the band! seeing the techies! maybe even jamming with the band! getting autographs! for these people, the concert is not the main event. for these people, the concert's end is not a reason to feel down, to go out and take your time getting to the car, knowing that a eighty thousand others are all going to be clamouring to get out before you. for these people, the end of the concert is the moment when they can go backstage! where others' experience ends after the last encore fades, their experience is only beginning.
in the gospel, i think God is offering us backstage passes (in a way). we don't have just the moment to live in, we have all those moments after these. and we should treasure the gospel. you don't go to the concert and leave them at home! you can't get in unless you've got them front and centre, where the door guys can see your credentials. and what's even better is that we get to give these backstage passes away ourselves! to anybody!
warren commented tonight he'd heard someone say that Christians are beggars who have been given bread - and tell other beggars where to get more. i know that i rarely share the gospel with people and i know that it is even more rare for me to sit down and truly dwell on the awesome nature of our God and King, and the power of the gospel to save. i don't live the way i should, not fully enough, not loudly enough, i think. my pass is in my pocket, in my bag, not around my neck. and the more i think about it, the more i think i'm losing out by being so reticent about it all. i'm terrified that my failures will make the gospel look bad, when in fact they can only make it look even more amazing - if it works for me (and look how much more screwed up i seem compared to how you think you are) it must work for you too!
can't half tell it's after midnight, eh?
there are a number of pat answers one can give without really getting to the nuts and bolts of our own personal understanding of what eternal life means. "a full relationship with God"... "no more tears, no more pain"... "being the person God meant for me to be"... "to live forever and never die"... are all examples of the kinds of answers i've heard over the years, with first leaning towadrs a more thoughtful understanding of eternal life, and the last leaning towards a more basic (and slightly flawed, perhaps, unless Jesus comes back in our lifetimes) understanding of it.
my own understanding of "eternal" is less a quantitive one and more a qualitative one, i hope. certainly, the eternal encompasses an infinity of temporal space, in which one could imagine replaying the whole of human history and seeing every event in minute detail, treating time as a river one could get out and wander up- and downstream of. i think, though, that my own ability to grasp the concept of the true nature of the eternal is inherently flawed and incapable of the most basic grasp of it. i remember a quote from somewhere, "if the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we'd be so simple we couldn't." i think it's a good quote because it underlines our limited view of the world around us. all that i could possibly ask or imagine in this life will barely fit into a fob pocket in my jeans in heaven (assuming we still wear jeans in heaven!) and the concept that everything could all be rolled up in such a way for us is laughable.
God is an energetic, creative God - if he had been content in himself to be simply eternal and self-relating, he need never have created us at all. it is because he loves us and desires that we be in relationship with him that he deigned to breathe life into the dust of the ground and call it "made in our image". God is love - and with that powerful, revealing-himself-as-father love comes an anger when his children do the wrong thing that is equally awesome, or awful. my parents were angry when i did the wrong thing because they love me and wanted me to do the right thing, and how much more than my parents does God love me!
my understanding of eternal life is that it is a restored relationship with God - to pray and be heard, to see his hand in the world around us, to find his character in my brothers and sisters, to see his image in the faces of strangers, to have his Spirit in my heart - it is not a restoring of our pre-fall status per se, i think, but a moving-on from that. adam had God's breath in his nostrils, but i have the Holy Spirit inside me; similar but different. God met with adam in the cool of the day, walked in the garden with him, but God is always and ever with me now and i am always and ever now with him: God has a place for me in his house, he has called me a son, and what he speaks is.
i do not enjoy the fullness of this restored relationship yet, because i still am in the world. sin continues to exact its toll in my life, reduced though it is according to God's grace, but what i suggested in Bible study tonight was this:
eternal life is a little like having a backstage pass at a concert. it's great to be at a concert or performance. everyone's there to have a great time, enjoy the show. some people have queued up for ages, some people had their tix as gifts, or won them in some competition. some are in the mosh pit, some are in the nosebleeds. everyone is there, enjoying themselves, the show, the company, and most are not thinking about what will happen after the show. they revel in the moment because, were they even able to admit it, the moment is all they have.
for those who have backstage passes, however, the concert is an amazing precursor to the freedom and privilege of going backstage. meeting the band! seeing the techies! maybe even jamming with the band! getting autographs! for these people, the concert is not the main event. for these people, the concert's end is not a reason to feel down, to go out and take your time getting to the car, knowing that a eighty thousand others are all going to be clamouring to get out before you. for these people, the end of the concert is the moment when they can go backstage! where others' experience ends after the last encore fades, their experience is only beginning.
in the gospel, i think God is offering us backstage passes (in a way). we don't have just the moment to live in, we have all those moments after these. and we should treasure the gospel. you don't go to the concert and leave them at home! you can't get in unless you've got them front and centre, where the door guys can see your credentials. and what's even better is that we get to give these backstage passes away ourselves! to anybody!
warren commented tonight he'd heard someone say that Christians are beggars who have been given bread - and tell other beggars where to get more. i know that i rarely share the gospel with people and i know that it is even more rare for me to sit down and truly dwell on the awesome nature of our God and King, and the power of the gospel to save. i don't live the way i should, not fully enough, not loudly enough, i think. my pass is in my pocket, in my bag, not around my neck. and the more i think about it, the more i think i'm losing out by being so reticent about it all. i'm terrified that my failures will make the gospel look bad, when in fact they can only make it look even more amazing - if it works for me (and look how much more screwed up i seem compared to how you think you are) it must work for you too!
can't half tell it's after midnight, eh?
Thursday, June 22, 2006
... one for each day of the week...
some books that i've been reading lately:
- the fruits of war - michael white
- aphrodite - isobel allende
- loves me, loves me not - laura a. smit
- charlie and the chocolate factory - roald dahl
- romanitas - sophia mcdougall
- poems and prose - gerard manley hopkins
- the cracking codebook - simon singh
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
... 101 reasons
well, i killed off my other blog. i think if i couldn't keep updating one blog, there's not really any way i can in all good conscience (even with something as trite as my "101 uses for...") try to run two at the same time.
from time to time i might use it as a header here, but i'm still toying with my "stupid seven" concept.
from time to time i might use it as a header here, but i'm still toying with my "stupid seven" concept.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
... stupid seven
seven things that should happen to stupid people who...
...pee on seats in male public toilets
does this seem harsh?
...pee on seats in male public toilets
- be made to wear a dress for a month
- given electro-shock treatment
- be made to clean toilets with cotton buds
- be disallowed use of toilet paper and issued with pumpkin vine leaves
- be disallowed use of a toilet seat... for all time
- be made to use a colostomy bag
- physical castration and removal of penis
does this seem harsh?
Friday, May 19, 2006
... relativity
i have a soft spot in my heart for shlocky films. one of my favourite movies is deep blue sea and the reason it's one of my favourites is one single scene. samuel l. jackson's character is holding forth on how bad people can get when the chips are down, and how backbiting, infighting and the blame game hinders you from actually doing somethign to resolve the dilemma you face. (vague, i know, but if you haven't seen it you may want to.) then he takes control of the decision making and promptly gets eaten by a shark that jumps out of the wet-entry dive pool at the bottom fo the underwater research station the film is set in. (one can only be so vague when making a point...)
i love that scene. there is another scene i like for its definition of relativity. l.l. cool j. has a line where he says something like, "put your hand on a hot pan and a second can seem like an hour... put your hands on a hot woman and an hour can seem like a second".
last night we were looking at acts 2:42-47, considering how the early church, immediately after pentecost and full of the joy of the Spirit and the gospel and their newly-found salvation, had everything in common, sold what they had and gave to others as they had need.
now i'm sure people haven't felt that life has got any less busy. many of our grandparents might say we've got it easy, while a few more cynical ones might say they wouldn't trade places with us for all the tea in china! what i do think has changed is the kind of society we're living in. first-century jerusalem had very different welfare systems in place than we have today. they were called "children", for the most part, and people often had a lot of them to build up their support network for their autumn years, when they could no longer work with their hands to provide for themselves but weren't yet ready to give up the ghost. nowadays we have "superannuation" and "retirement" and "pension". these support the individual who has been paying into them for however many working years, or as a recognition of the contribution they've made to society (although pensions seem to be becoming fewer and less supportive as time goes by).
i really feel that this drive towards providing for ourselves has left us bereft of a lot of the beneficial side-effects (the undocumented features, if you will) of a family-based or village-based, namely that in a society where everyone looks after everyone else everyone is (ideally) cared for somehow. children are watched because everyone has children and they're the future of the family/village and so it's in the family/village's best interests to look after them, and if you're around when they need looking after, that's what you do. when i was growing up, we hung out next door until my parents came home from work or tafe or wherever they were, and our neighbours' kids hung out at our place for the same reason.
i don't know how much of this looking out for one another happens around childcare centres or schools anymore. mums used to congregate at the gates, walking bunches of kids home and dropping them off one after another at the houses until they arrived at their own houses. does that still happen? how many kids go straight to after-school care? or tutoring (which a cynical person could call clayton's after-school care)?
if you know me, you know where i think this leads. two parents both working to pay off a mortgage to live in a house with kids they're disconnected from and spend more time watching tv with than talking to.
i love that scene. there is another scene i like for its definition of relativity. l.l. cool j. has a line where he says something like, "put your hand on a hot pan and a second can seem like an hour... put your hands on a hot woman and an hour can seem like a second".
last night we were looking at acts 2:42-47, considering how the early church, immediately after pentecost and full of the joy of the Spirit and the gospel and their newly-found salvation, had everything in common, sold what they had and gave to others as they had need.
now i'm sure people haven't felt that life has got any less busy. many of our grandparents might say we've got it easy, while a few more cynical ones might say they wouldn't trade places with us for all the tea in china! what i do think has changed is the kind of society we're living in. first-century jerusalem had very different welfare systems in place than we have today. they were called "children", for the most part, and people often had a lot of them to build up their support network for their autumn years, when they could no longer work with their hands to provide for themselves but weren't yet ready to give up the ghost. nowadays we have "superannuation" and "retirement" and "pension". these support the individual who has been paying into them for however many working years, or as a recognition of the contribution they've made to society (although pensions seem to be becoming fewer and less supportive as time goes by).
i really feel that this drive towards providing for ourselves has left us bereft of a lot of the beneficial side-effects (the undocumented features, if you will) of a family-based or village-based, namely that in a society where everyone looks after everyone else everyone is (ideally) cared for somehow. children are watched because everyone has children and they're the future of the family/village and so it's in the family/village's best interests to look after them, and if you're around when they need looking after, that's what you do. when i was growing up, we hung out next door until my parents came home from work or tafe or wherever they were, and our neighbours' kids hung out at our place for the same reason.
i don't know how much of this looking out for one another happens around childcare centres or schools anymore. mums used to congregate at the gates, walking bunches of kids home and dropping them off one after another at the houses until they arrived at their own houses. does that still happen? how many kids go straight to after-school care? or tutoring (which a cynical person could call clayton's after-school care)?
if you know me, you know where i think this leads. two parents both working to pay off a mortgage to live in a house with kids they're disconnected from and spend more time watching tv with than talking to.
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
... "like a child with new clothes..."
doing a bit of surfing while ate lunch, i wandered into the matthew reilly website, and remembering the old web address for hover car racer, i thought i'd check it out. WOW! hover car racer ii is coming soon! i hope it's sooner rather than later.
i've been noticing the marching passage of time seems a little faster now than it used to be (stemming from a conversation in the shop i had with a customer this morning), and i realised that my move to melbourne is much sooner on the horizon that it was when i first thought about it. i head down for a holiday later this year (fingers crossed, my tax refund will be as helpful as it was last year!) and to scope out a few places i've been chatting about with people, maybe for work, maybe to live. one place i was interested in for work is in frankston, but one of the most promising places to live is heidelberg! they're about 90-120 minutes apart, and while i don't mind travelling, that might be a bit much. it's further than i travel now...
so i don't know. i'm looking forward to wandering about the place and pretending to be a working joe for a while. there was a great card and paper shop i happened on when i was there a couple of weekends ago, and i might stick my head in there and see if there might be any work opportunities. it's in the city, i'm familiar with some of their stock already, and i worked in a newsagency for a while... i've dealt with greeting cards before.
a few thoughts...
i've been noticing the marching passage of time seems a little faster now than it used to be (stemming from a conversation in the shop i had with a customer this morning), and i realised that my move to melbourne is much sooner on the horizon that it was when i first thought about it. i head down for a holiday later this year (fingers crossed, my tax refund will be as helpful as it was last year!) and to scope out a few places i've been chatting about with people, maybe for work, maybe to live. one place i was interested in for work is in frankston, but one of the most promising places to live is heidelberg! they're about 90-120 minutes apart, and while i don't mind travelling, that might be a bit much. it's further than i travel now...
so i don't know. i'm looking forward to wandering about the place and pretending to be a working joe for a while. there was a great card and paper shop i happened on when i was there a couple of weekends ago, and i might stick my head in there and see if there might be any work opportunities. it's in the city, i'm familiar with some of their stock already, and i worked in a newsagency for a while... i've dealt with greeting cards before.
a few thoughts...
... keeping up appearances
i actually have a fair amount to blog, but no time to actually write it up and upload it. there is stuff coming, but it may take a little longer.
in lighter news, one of the ladies at my fave morning cafe in the city took my money for my breakfast and the one dollar coin slid out of her hand, bounced perfectly off the stainless steel countertop and into a jug! couldn't have done it if we'd rehearsed it, i don't think...
in lighter news, one of the ladies at my fave morning cafe in the city took my money for my breakfast and the one dollar coin slid out of her hand, bounced perfectly off the stainless steel countertop and into a jug! couldn't have done it if we'd rehearsed it, i don't think...
Friday, April 28, 2006
... busy
my weekends fill up so quickly sometimes, i half-wonder when my time suddenly became so much in demand. i'm off to wollongong this weekend for an annual pool tournament that i haven't actually been able to make for a while. i'm looking forward to it.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
... introspection
have you ever felt like everything you do is letting someone down, somewhere?
anyone who knows me will tell you about me that i have a great memory for some things and a crap memory for others. i'm good with movie stars in movies (six degrees of kevin bacon is a fave of mine) and hopeless with dates. on your birthday, i will wake up with a vague sense of unease, thinking there's something i should be doing today, a phone call i should be making, someone i need to be talking to.
i felt like that a couple of weeks ago, contacted someone to work out what i was forgetting, and upset someone in the doing of that. all because my memory is crap and i am a tool who doesn't organise life more effectively around myself. i know my memory is crap. i did have an external memory i was using, but it turned out to be crap as well and got fried. all data lost. and i am a tool once again.
something else that happened to me recently is that i was asked how i became a Christian. it's a long story, and the more often i tell it, the less i think of myself. i don't know why that is. i am certainly amazed every day that God has brought me into a relationship with him and, while i continue every day to make stupid mistakes & errors of judgement and in more ways than i care to think of let him down, he continues to save me from myself and shows me that i am not my own - i am his, and nothing i or anyone else can do will ever change that.
i'm not particularly keen on having my book read out at the last day - is anyone? - but one page will read something like, "september 1990, repented and prayed for forgiveness, entered the Kingdom of God, got out of the bath and dried off and got dressed. eventually stopped crying." that is the day God saved me from myself. every day since he has been keeping me from trying to take control back and metaphorically smearing the walls of his new temple with my own crap.
i commented at the end of my testimony that it never really leaves you, the option of suicide. it's like learning all of a sudden about control-alt-delete. "oh my goodness, my computer isn't doing what i want it to do, maybe i should just hit ctrl-alt-del and start over...?" except it isn't. the problem is that without having someone operate on my brain, i don't see how i can unlearn it. i've asked God to help me unlearn a lot of stuff, but never that. i suppose, in a way, it's my escape clause in our little covenant - that if the going gets too hot, i might pull the plug. every time i've sat down to seriously consider it since that day in 1990, i've stayed my hand because of God's love for me. perhaps, then, the button still looks like it's there, but God's pulled out the wiring underneath.
he has surrounded me with friends and family - blood and spiritual - who continue to be an encouragement and reminder to me that God's love, and the poor copy we share, is so much more than the things we struggle against in our lives. i let people down, and surely the only thing that enables them to forgive me (if/when they do) is the love that God has put in their hearts.
thank you, God, for that.
anyone who knows me will tell you about me that i have a great memory for some things and a crap memory for others. i'm good with movie stars in movies (six degrees of kevin bacon is a fave of mine) and hopeless with dates. on your birthday, i will wake up with a vague sense of unease, thinking there's something i should be doing today, a phone call i should be making, someone i need to be talking to.
i felt like that a couple of weeks ago, contacted someone to work out what i was forgetting, and upset someone in the doing of that. all because my memory is crap and i am a tool who doesn't organise life more effectively around myself. i know my memory is crap. i did have an external memory i was using, but it turned out to be crap as well and got fried. all data lost. and i am a tool once again.
something else that happened to me recently is that i was asked how i became a Christian. it's a long story, and the more often i tell it, the less i think of myself. i don't know why that is. i am certainly amazed every day that God has brought me into a relationship with him and, while i continue every day to make stupid mistakes & errors of judgement and in more ways than i care to think of let him down, he continues to save me from myself and shows me that i am not my own - i am his, and nothing i or anyone else can do will ever change that.
i'm not particularly keen on having my book read out at the last day - is anyone? - but one page will read something like, "september 1990, repented and prayed for forgiveness, entered the Kingdom of God, got out of the bath and dried off and got dressed. eventually stopped crying." that is the day God saved me from myself. every day since he has been keeping me from trying to take control back and metaphorically smearing the walls of his new temple with my own crap.
i commented at the end of my testimony that it never really leaves you, the option of suicide. it's like learning all of a sudden about control-alt-delete. "oh my goodness, my computer isn't doing what i want it to do, maybe i should just hit ctrl-alt-del and start over...?" except it isn't. the problem is that without having someone operate on my brain, i don't see how i can unlearn it. i've asked God to help me unlearn a lot of stuff, but never that. i suppose, in a way, it's my escape clause in our little covenant - that if the going gets too hot, i might pull the plug. every time i've sat down to seriously consider it since that day in 1990, i've stayed my hand because of God's love for me. perhaps, then, the button still looks like it's there, but God's pulled out the wiring underneath.
he has surrounded me with friends and family - blood and spiritual - who continue to be an encouragement and reminder to me that God's love, and the poor copy we share, is so much more than the things we struggle against in our lives. i let people down, and surely the only thing that enables them to forgive me (if/when they do) is the love that God has put in their hearts.
thank you, God, for that.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
... anti-update
this is less of an update and more of an explanation of what's been happening.
we had a virus scare at work, which is why i haven't been updating as regularly as i had been before i stopped updating so regularly... does that make sense? (i was updating my blog at work during my lunch break.)
i haven't been updating at home because by the time i was getting home i really couldn't put two sentences together that were terribly coherent. our broadband access here at home that i have after long not having regular internet access at home (by choice) have now recently enjoyed is soon to be temporarily cut off as part of a name-change on the broadband bill.
so who knows when my next update will be? if you have my mobile number, telephone me and say hi! 7-8.45am, or 7-11pm AEST is an excellent time to get me on my mobile.
peace ya dead budgies! eh-eh :)
we had a virus scare at work, which is why i haven't been updating as regularly as i had been before i stopped updating so regularly... does that make sense? (i was updating my blog at work during my lunch break.)
i haven't been updating at home because by the time i was getting home i really couldn't put two sentences together that were terribly coherent. our broadband access here at home that i have after long not having regular internet access at home (by choice) have now recently enjoyed is soon to be temporarily cut off as part of a name-change on the broadband bill.
so who knows when my next update will be? if you have my mobile number, telephone me and say hi! 7-8.45am, or 7-11pm AEST is an excellent time to get me on my mobile.
peace ya dead budgies! eh-eh :)
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
... happy birthday to you!
i know it's been a while since i posted, but i've been a bit away from the 'net lately, plus i've not been checking things out at work at lunch... a virus scare at work. in any case, today's a very important day.
my baby sister turned 30 years old today.
happy birthday Allison! i love you very much and i'm very proud of you.
my baby sister turned 30 years old today.
happy birthday Allison! i love you very much and i'm very proud of you.
Friday, March 31, 2006
... all my friends are (still)...
tonight marks another sombre occasion in my life - one of the people i led for a time in youth group is getting married. i'm overwhelmed with joy for the couple in question, and i have nothing but hope and prayer for a joyful and fruitful life together, filled with peace, and forgiveness, and reconciliation. as an early thirtysomething who's been feeling ready to settle down for about 25 years, it's hard not to feel a bit left on the shelf - but that's self pity and i haven't got time to really dwell on it these days. i note its passage, and hopefully that's all.
so it's an evening wedding on a weeknight, even though it's not a school night, and i think that's kind of funky. you can make a good start tomorrow after a nice lie-in, people leaving the reception/supper after the service can roll on to wherever they like, and it's a bit of a standout in that when was the last wedding you went to... on a weekday... at night? very nifty.
you should have seen the invitations! how awesome were they? i've been telling customers about them, although i'm going to have to bring it in to work just so's they can get a clue of what i'm talking about.
i'm sure tonight will go well, and i hope and pray that tonight is as bad as their life together gets - that it's only onwards and upwards from here. God bless you two crazy kids!
so it's an evening wedding on a weeknight, even though it's not a school night, and i think that's kind of funky. you can make a good start tomorrow after a nice lie-in, people leaving the reception/supper after the service can roll on to wherever they like, and it's a bit of a standout in that when was the last wedding you went to... on a weekday... at night? very nifty.
you should have seen the invitations! how awesome were they? i've been telling customers about them, although i'm going to have to bring it in to work just so's they can get a clue of what i'm talking about.
i'm sure tonight will go well, and i hope and pray that tonight is as bad as their life together gets - that it's only onwards and upwards from here. God bless you two crazy kids!
Thursday, March 30, 2006
... not one ... but two
today, two things i feel are marvellous.
i went to the movies with my housemates last night, almost a marvel in itself in that it doesn't happen very often (i think we've all been out together maybe two other times), and we saw proof with gwyneth paltrow, jake gyllenhaal(?) and anthony hopkins.
hope davis put in a very believable performance as an annoying, own-guilt-appeasing older sister, and anothony hopkins was okay, but not his best work, alas. jake and gwyneth were the two standouts, gwyneth reminding me a lot of sliding doors and se7en, two movies i very much liked her performances in. i haven't yet seen the royal tannenbaums, but i'm guessing it's probably as good or better than this. jake reliable as always; i like him the way i like brenadan fraser, but i think jake is edgier than brendan, who needs a few more "quiet american"s before his going to prove himself as an edgy actor for me.
the second marvellous thing was the discovery of a pasta place called "pasta resistance" in clarence st in the city. my train from work into the city ran late and i missed the bus that would get me home in time to shower and change to come back into town. frustrated, i decided to salve my frustration with food (i know, i know...) and en route to oporto i passed this restaurant.
at ten minutes to 8, while they were cleaning up, they were kind enough to serve me dinner, let me sit while i ate it and they kept up cleaning, and told me a little about the place. it's great, not too expensive and i was quite happy paying what i paid for what i got. a little more garlic on the garlic bread and my dining experience would have been complete! they're open 7-8 m-w, 7-9 th-sa (i think). i'm looking forward to going back, maybe working my way through the menu!
i went to the movies with my housemates last night, almost a marvel in itself in that it doesn't happen very often (i think we've all been out together maybe two other times), and we saw proof with gwyneth paltrow, jake gyllenhaal(?) and anthony hopkins.
hope davis put in a very believable performance as an annoying, own-guilt-appeasing older sister, and anothony hopkins was okay, but not his best work, alas. jake and gwyneth were the two standouts, gwyneth reminding me a lot of sliding doors and se7en, two movies i very much liked her performances in. i haven't yet seen the royal tannenbaums, but i'm guessing it's probably as good or better than this. jake reliable as always; i like him the way i like brenadan fraser, but i think jake is edgier than brendan, who needs a few more "quiet american"s before his going to prove himself as an edgy actor for me.
the second marvellous thing was the discovery of a pasta place called "pasta resistance" in clarence st in the city. my train from work into the city ran late and i missed the bus that would get me home in time to shower and change to come back into town. frustrated, i decided to salve my frustration with food (i know, i know...) and en route to oporto i passed this restaurant.
at ten minutes to 8, while they were cleaning up, they were kind enough to serve me dinner, let me sit while i ate it and they kept up cleaning, and told me a little about the place. it's great, not too expensive and i was quite happy paying what i paid for what i got. a little more garlic on the garlic bread and my dining experience would have been complete! they're open 7-8 m-w, 7-9 th-sa (i think). i'm looking forward to going back, maybe working my way through the menu!
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
... new blog
i don't know if anyone's noticed, but i've got a new blog... the link is off to the side here ------------->>>
it's borne of a txt message i sent to a friend, and i'm half-wondering how many things could be in it...
it's borne of a txt message i sent to a friend, and i'm half-wondering how many things could be in it...
... peeve
what is it with people who catch the bus? is it such a chore to sit next to the window? i understand that sometimes you need to get out in a only a couple of stops, but when you see that the bus has, oh, about three empty seats left and one is next to you (facing backwards, at the front of the bus) and the other two are in the back corners of the back seat of the bus, next to three ... large ... guys in business suits with briefcases, why don't you stand up??? either stand for a standing woman, or move over.
it doesn't help that the guy had one of those little tailored goatees that make me want to slap him and poke him in the butt with the trident he should be carrying... but really.
it doesn't help that the guy had one of those little tailored goatees that make me want to slap him and poke him in the butt with the trident he should be carrying... but really.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)