Occasionally you just need to ‘drop everything’.

Today I was on my way to the Two Rocks rec centre to check out what’s going on in our community and I took a brief detour to The Spot, a local surf break that is good, but usually packed.

As I drove down the track I noticed it was offshore… hmmm… a light breeze – and then I got into the carpark and was the only one there. Usually this means the surf is crap. But today although it was small there were sets coming thru that were very ridable and there was no one out.

To get decent waves to yourself is a luxury so I spun around and headed for home to grab my board and wetsuit before anyone else turned up. Somehow in the rush I managed to grab the board and forget the wetsuit… so although it was a very good surf it was also a pretty cold one and a short one.

I was out there alone for a while before one other bloke followed me out. Probably the best day I have had at The Spot, but it needed a ‘drop everything’ moment for it to happen.

Sometimes you just have to do it.

A few months back I reflected that I was going to change tack in how I introduce myself to people and when asked what I do for a crust I would be a ‘retic bloke’ rather than a baptist minister. I’m happy for people to know I’m a minister, but I just thought it would be interesting to experiment with a different starting point.

So today I am out surfing again and there’s one other bloke in the water – also mid 40’s and a local. We get chatting. He works at the golf course. We talk about life, family, kids, work, travel and the general banter that blokes have – broken occasionally by one of us catching a wave. He tells me that he wants to get his kids into the surf club this year and there’s a point of common interest because we have been considering similar.

‘When’s it on?’ I ask.

‘Sundays – in the morning’

‘Yeah I thought so. We’d like to send the kids but we are part of a church community that meets at the same time so it gets tricky’

‘Yeah me too’ he says.

I wasn’t sure if I’d heard him right. ‘You’re part of a church too hey?’

‘Yep.’

‘Which one?’ I ask.

‘The Christadelphians’ he says, ‘ But we meet a long way away so church is a 100km round trip.’

I chuckle inwardly because I’m guessing neither of us picked the other for a God botherer. He went on to tell me they had been looking for a church locally but hadn’t found one that was down to earth and not too ‘happy clappy’ (his words).

In the flow of the conversation I let him know that I was a pastor and led a local Baptist church. At that point he obviously felt compelled to let me know that he wasn’t a very good Christian because he swore and drank too much. I’m guessing he was thinking back over the conversation we’d had and the ‘f’ words that had been sprinkled throughout and the references to ‘time wasted not drinking beer’. I told him I didn’t think Jesus cared too much about a few naughty words and had bigger fish to fry.

I don’t often invite people to church, but today I did. I’m not sure if he is a dyed in the wool ‘Christadelphian’ (whatever they are these days) or whether he’s just a bloke trying to find God and raise his family in the way of Christ. But I figured he’d like our mob and he’d fit in well.

I invited him home for a coffee or beer, but he had to head off and pick his kid up from school. We’ve been praying for some local mates both for ourselves and for our kids so who knows. Maybe this was a significant encounter, or maybe its just another slice of life…

I’m hoping we might see each other again.

Ok so there’s a word that didn’t exist before Facebook… but now it needs no explanation.

I was a reluctant facebooker and avoided it for a couple of years before finally conceding that I might benefit from it. I have days when I find it really valuable and days when my mouse hovers over ‘delete account’ as I consider getting out of it altogether.

I used to have a pretty ‘open’ policy on friends. I recognise some people read my blog and want to connect via facebook so even if I didn’t know you personally I would accept the friend request. That has changed however and now if I don’t actually know you I am most likely going to hit ‘ignore’.

The friend requests that irk me the most are those from people I have no knowledge of whatsover, but when I look at their page I see 2435 friends. I feel like I am becoming ‘friend fodder’ for a fragile ego. Then there are those whose common friends are high profile church leaders, some of whom are my mates. Seriously though, just because we have ‘friends’ in common does that mean we should be friends?

In the last few weeks I have been defriended twice. Ironically neither of the people who defriended me were actually friends. More acquaintances and barely that. One who was an ex school student asked for some advice, which I gave. On a subsequent post some harsh words were spoken by this person about Christians & hypocrites blah blah blah… (you know the deal) and then I finished up being ‘defriended’. There was no communication. Just a click of a button and ‘goodbye’.

Then on the day Steve Jobs died a ‘friend’ posted ‘Steve Jobs invents new app called iDead’. I commented – ‘a bit soon?…’ , because I thought it was. The next thing I knew I had been yet again ‘de-friended’ and my comment deleted. (Obviously dissenting opinions were not welcome on this page) But now I’m wondering – when I see this person at the shops (because we live near each other) have I been defriended in real life or just online?… Do we ignore one another? What is the protocol?…

Or maybe facebook is more like real life than we would like to admit. Maybe this is how it works in our world. I have certainly seen plenty of people cut friendships at the slightest hint of disagreement. Unfortunately it only creates immature people who fail to grow and develop relationships of substance – because you can’t do that when you cut off everyone who disagrees with you.

So maybe facebook actually exposes us more than we realise… definitely time to delete that account…

Last year was a very busy retic year for me. I said ‘yes’ to virtually every job possible and on the three days I allocate to my business I went at a frantic pace. I got a lot of work, earnt a lot of money and paid a big slab off the mortgage. That was part of the plan – to try and recover from that big hit we took a couple of years back.

We still had fun, enjoyed life and had holidays, but it wasn’t a pace I wanted to run at for any length of time. I also found myself becoming somewhat obsessive about the whole issue of reducing debt. In the end I became more concerned about the obsession, than the pace at which I was working. When you have a somewhat obsessive personality its easy to do…

However winter and spring have given me a chance to experience a much more sustainable pace of life and its one I’d like to keep rolling. Its been wonderful starting work at 8 and getting home by 2. When you know that’s all you’re doing 3 days a week then its not as demanding on the body – and my body was really beginning to tell the story.

I’m figuring I could well be a retic and turf bloke for many years to come, so I’m looking for a pace that allows me to enjoy work rather than just being a money spinner.

So as summer approaches i’ll be saying ‘no’ a lot more often. I’ll be referring work on, or just politely declining because I want to address the issue of ‘pace’. Yes, I could employ someone, develop the business etc – and there is plenty of opportunity for that – but at this point in time that isn’t my intent. It is very much a lifestyle business with good returns and low stress – if I choose to keep it that way. To employ staff would change that. Maybe in the future… but i doubt it…

So I have already been spacing work out and planning for easier more enjoyable times. Perhaps not as financially lucrative, but I’m guessing I’ll have a bit more fun

For the last 4 years I have really ‘enjoyed’ the writing of Cam Harris at The Walk Beside, a blog that started when Cam found he had been diagnosed with cancer. Cam’s blog is one of those rare examples of why some people really should keep blogs. It was funny, gutsy, honest and often disturbing – and did I mention funny?…

I wouldn’t call myself a friend of Cam as such, but we did know each other and I did the ‘walk beside’ albeit via the net. The more I read the less I commented… what can you say when you are listening to the inner turmoil of a person who is following Jesus while dealing with terminal illness?

I’m not a fan of easy answers and for that reason his blog was a breath of fresh air. His visceral writing was at times difficult to read, but it was also inspirational.

Cam died last week and his funeral was yesterday. As you read the blog you saw the inevitable unfolding and even though I and many others prayed for Cam and hoped for a miracle, it didn’t look like it was going to happen.

It didn’t.

I’m sure there is much sadness in the Harris household at the loss of Cam and from this onlooker I’d want to offer my thoughts and prayers.

Each year when our house and contents renewal comes in the amount allocated to contents has increased by about 3-5%.

I don’t think its that our stuff has appreciated in value… as if… Rather there is an assumption that as each year goes by we will buy more stuff. Its a bizarre assumption because sooner or later you must have enough… or more than enough even…

I have watched it happen unquestioningly over the last few years and only begun to ponder it this year as I looked at the ‘insured amount’ and did a quick scan around the house and an estimate of the contents.

We rarely buy new stuff and have also had a fairly decent purge lately so the real value of our stuff is probably about half of what was estimated.

I ‘get’ that replacement value is higher, but even then I think we would be way overinsured. So its time to reign it in and recalibrate it to a more normal and reasonable amount.

Crikey at the rate we are assumed to be purchasing we would own a ludicrous amount of stuff in 20 years time.

When it came to the ‘housing’ component of the policy we had one company who could not insure our home for less than $550K. At that amount I’d be tempted to burn the whole thing down just to get the payout! Given we paid just $560K for house and land it seems like a bit of a wacky estimate – even given demolition and associated costs.

In the end we have decided to go with the Commonwealth Bank for house and contents both for price and quality of product. They came in at $870.0 P.A while my renewal from GIO was $1400.00 What really made me mad with GIO was that they instantly gave me a $120.00 discount when I rang to enquire about the amount. Obviously there is a buffer in the renewal sum based on the assumption that most people won’t bother calling but will just cop the hit.

I hate insurance.

If you want your business to work then return people’s phone calls, emails and enquiries promptly – immediately even.

Since moving house we have had to contact some tradies to get quotes on different work and getting a return phone call is like gettting blood out of a stone. By the time the call does come (if it comes) I have already moved on to ring someone else who sounds like a) they know what they are talking about b) will turn up.

Its a pretty low bar to jump just to be in business – return calls, know something about what you are doing, turn up. After that if you’re good at your job then the rest should take care of itself.

We hear lots of news about the economic downturn and people struggling to make money and so on. I can only assume that all the tradies I call are so laden down with work that they don’t have time to call back.

I began my own business partly out of frustration at the ineptdness of so many tradies I had dealt with. I figured you didn’t have to be any kind of genius to make a business work. That was 4 years ago and it seems not much has changed.

I was at my sister in law’s place today doing some handyman stuff and getting the house ready for tenants. One of the jobs involved changing over the vanity basins in the bathrooms – relatively simple you’d think – but not if the fittings are hard to get…

To get the basin off I needed to remove taps and spout. To get the spout off I had to wrench very hard on the poly nut holding it in place, breaking it in the process. No big deal I figured. I’ll get another one from Bunnings… A ‘5/8’ nut would be easy to find you’d think.

So I went to Bunnings…

One of the shop assistants took a look and said ‘nope, never seen one of those. If we have one it’d be in that area there.’ He pointed me to an aisle and then did an about turn. Thanks a heap…

So I went to Reece…

‘Nope. They stopped using them about 9 years ago mate. Can’t help you.’

So I went to Galvins…

‘Nope. Can’t help you mate.’

That was it.

I went back and did some more work and then thought I’d try Quinns Hardware. These guys sometimes have odd stuff, or if they haven’t got it they can find it somewhere.

Sure enough. A woman in her 20’s answered the phone.

‘Ok, I know what you mean but I’m not sure if we have one. You’d have to come in, but I think we can help. I’ll leave a few out and we can see if they fit.

I went in and one of the nuts she had there was perfect. And then she looked up her suppliers book and ordered me another one (for the other basin…)

So what does it say about the 3 ‘big guys’? Honestly to me it simply says ‘we don’t care and can’t be bothered.’ What does it say about the little guy?…

A heap!

After removing the

Its been 3 weeks since we moved house, (one of which we spent over East), but I’m now starting to feel somewhat settled in the new place. Settled enough to be able to appreciate the environment and feel grateful rather than lost.

Actually I’m loving it here and I’m aware that I actually feel more alive in this place than I have for a while. Most people who have come and visited here tell us that the house and area is very ‘us’ and while I’m not sure what means exactly I would have to agree. It feels right. It feels like a place where we can come alive.

I’m very conscious that I have come here with a very different mindset to that which I went to Butler. I haven’t come here ‘on a mission’, yet I’m very aware that I am indeed on a mission – every bit as much as I was back there – but perhaps with some knowledge and experience that I didn’t have at that point in life.

So how does a ‘backyard missionary’ do his thing 8 years on? (That’s how long I have been blogging on this theme!)

Well I guess the big shift has been in ‘waiting for the wind to blow’ rather than attaching a 215HP outboard and hitting the throttle. I don’t mean that in a passive way – not at all. But I do mean it in the sense of sniffing around and trying to tune into what God is doing and who he may be bringing across my path. I mean looking for the wind and setting the sails to catch it rather than driving full steam in a direction because I can.

As the wind has blown there was a surf at the local beach with a bloke my age and a good conversation to boot. I’ve wandered next door and across the road to meet the neighbours when they have been out gardening. And then today the phone rang and it was a local bloke seeking some labouring work. He had found my card at the local hardware (another place where my face is now getting known) and called me seeking work. If enough work comes up then I’ll be giving him a call.

Its honestly not very exciting but these are the networks that form as we live our ordinary lives – as we surf, shop and work – and my guess is that God is just as capable of using a vessel with sails prepared for the wind as he is able to use a bloke with a huge outboard. In fact my choice to live this way is because I am sensing that it is a truer way to live and more sustainable.

So the journey begins and we’ll see where it leads but for those who may still be interested that’s the deal thus far.

This afternoon as I was painting some lattice on our verandah I couldn’t help but think that if there is a hell then this is what we would be doing there. Painting lattice is a ridiculously tedious and frustrating task with so many fiddly edges to paint that you feel you will never finish. That was where two hours of my Sunday afternoon went – and I haven’t even finished the first coat yet…

Then around 5.00pm as Danelle got back I decided to head down to the lagoon and see if the little wave just 100m north was throwing anything up. I got there and saw a pile of cars – whale watchers – all checking out the big fish lolling around a couple of hundred metres offshore.

I headed back home and called the kids (its nice living 400m from the beach) and they came to have a look. Ryan and Sy were there so they whale watched and played while I surfed and watched the whale do his thing and the sun sink slowly into the ocean.

If hell involves painting lattice then this was pretty damn close to heaven!