Yeeeha!
We are off for a week of holidays with some good friends.
We’re headed to a place called Mandurah for a week of relaxing and beaching and surfing and eating and…
You may hear from me while we are there – if I feel the need to write – if not… then you won’t!
Just to wind up, if you’d like another insight into the scary mind that is mine then you can go here and read an ‘interview’ thingy I did for emerginchurch.info.
In looking to 2004 and doing some dreaming and some planning I spent some of yesterday afternoon (before I fell asleep) reflectingnon what had happened in 2003.
If you’d like an insight into my life and what happened for me this year then read on!
* Most Significant Event – Sam’s birth and our leaving Lesmurdie
* Most Enjoyable Book – Mindless Ferocity of Sharks by Brett D’Arcy (you’d have to be a West Aussie to like it!)
* Favourite Movie – Whale Rider – powerful and beautiful!
* Most Memorable Experience – not sure – probably seeing Sam for the first time
* Most Forgettable Experience – ‘holiday’ in Hedland where we were all sick for 10 days
* Most Transformative Experience – reading Hugh Mackay’s novel Winter Close – these two paragraphs in particular:
“Rich is fond of saying that the thing about Winter Close is that it fosters a real sense of community. That’s a big claim and I wish I could share Rich’s confidence in making it. Now that Sydney has grown to four million, communities are hard to come by: a common complaint among Sydneysiders is that ‘we don’t know our neighbours’ – as if that’s the neighbours fault. I’ve given up saying ‘why don’t you knock on their door and introduce yourself?’ The puzzled looks I receive make it clear I have missed the point: plenty of people like not knowing their neighbours and only pretend to complain about it. Suburbia offers the wonderful cloak of anonymity for those who want the security of proximity without any of the demands of intimacy” P.10
“The contract between neighbours is based on resistance to intimacy, so a quite different kind of closeness becomes possible: easy open, comfortable, but devoid of any ultimate responsibility or any glimpses into each other’s souls. These are adjacent lives – sometimes even parallel lives – rather than shared lives. We compensate for our physical proximity by keeping our emotional distance. These are not like relationships between friends, or even between people who work closely together – I know Maddy better than I know Rich, Abel, or Mrs Spenser, or Joe Riley. Perhaps the thing suburban life offers us is the possibility of living the life of a herd without the bonds of a tribe: proximity, familiarity, trust, support… but not intimacy. When we cross that line we cease to be neighbours and become something else” P.156
* Biggest Change – not preaching regularly anywhere – felt weird! Having no set routine.
* Biggest Buzz – getting to know our new neighbours so easily – great people.
* Regrets – gaining 5 kgs, losing my way with personal disciplines
* Challenges Ahead – losing 5 kgs and regaining a more disiplined life
* Toughest Challenge – leading a team of people on this journey of exploration with no map
* Greatest Joy – sensing God in the middle of that journey and seeing all of us learn and grow and face things head on.
* Most Significant Scripture Passage – Isaiah 55
* Things I Learnt:
– I can maintain and grow in faith without attending a Sunday church serice
– Other people can do that too
– You don’t stop being who you are just because you are on long service leave
– I may be losing my ability to communicate with teens
– Its still ‘God’s show’
– Measure twice cut once
* Greatest Discovery – Rambos – our local surf break
There is probably heaps more – but it has been a great ‘sabbatical’ year.
Now its down to business!…
He is a good singer…
Another reason might be what I think
psychologists refer to as ‘recency effect’. In first year psych (17 years ago) I seem to remember it being said that when we see a long line of people or things and are then asked to make a judgement we will typically best remember what we saw first (primacy) and what we saw last.
Going last might have been an added blessing for Kurt. and it might have been a factor in Guy Sebastian’s poorer than expected result.
All this dribble from a bloke who couldn’t care less!
I’ve got to say a big well done to the podgy Nowegian hobbit plumber who kicked some huge butt (esp the US judge!) to win World Idol. I reckon this guy was the pick of the crop and definitely deserved to rank as highly as he did.
Unfortunately it seemed like that only words of English Kurt could speak fluently were the lyrics to his song so the post win interview was rather brief! Although one look at his face definitely told you what he was feeling.
It was a great response by the guy who was called ‘ugly’ by the judges.
Meanwhile our own Guy Sebastian finished up as a very average idol with 5th and 6th placings being the norm. No shame there – he is obviously a great artist and will do very well.
I have to confess I actually got interested in this whole thing after watching the world idol finals – but more than anything I was hoping Kurt would stick it right up the judges who were rude to him.
I think we could safely say he did that…
You may notice I have added a few new faces to the list of blogs I admit to reading.
Lately I’ve done a lot of reading and learnt a heap from these other people. I imagine it will all die off fairly rapidly once I begin serious work again! But for now I’m enjoying the space.
The new faces recently added are:
Dogfightatbankstown – a South Aussie who writes on a variety of subjects and is always worth a read.
Dashhouse – a Canadian who is exploring the em church scene.
Blog One Another – by Jon Reid – another em church blogger
Jonny Baker – also em church and alt worship stuff – check out his ‘worship tricks’.
Si Johnson – another em churcher with whom I share a love of surfing and the same birthplace.
I am wondering if this person
will also sue the car manufacturers for failing to warn him that driving a car could result in an accident?!
Will he sue his lawyer for failing to warn him that his case might not be successful?…
Tomorrow we find out who it is…
It seems the money is on either Kelly from the US, Kurt from Norway or Guy.
You’d have to be feeling pretty good if you were Guydownload death of a president divx
Last night was the first new year I have stayed up for in about 5 years!
Despite my decision to celebrate on eastern standard time we finished up going home from Mick and Caroline’s at 12.05
We had a great night eating dinner, drinking some good red wine, watching Robbie Williams on DVD, chatting and discussing life the universe and everything.life as a house free download
In response to yesterday’s post chronicles of riddick the dvdrip hamlet dvdrip fired up free download – well done to all who suggested shade sails!
I must confess that I found myself wondering what the ‘three crosses’ were doing outside the cafe… I found it interesting that the very first thing I saw was three crosses – not a shadesail structure. Maybe its because I don’t know much about shade sails or maybe it says something about what happens in my head?