My Princess
Reply
Category Archives: Personal
When God Sneaks Up on You
Today did not go as planned.
It was intended to be a solitude / prayer / reflection kind of day – the kind of day that would have made a Thomas Merton proud.
Danelle and I do these together (in fact we would like to do it with other couples if any are up for it) but the intent has always been that we create quiet space to listen to God and settle the noise that fills our heads and hearts.
Today we dropped the kids at mum and dad’s and then headed down to Trigg Beach hoping to do the quiet/solitude/pray thing somewhere along the coast.
It was very cold and wet so we ended up having a coffee at the Trigg Island Café. We both had stuff to put on the table and talk thru – I had been given a prophetic word that I wanted to talk with Danelle about and she had some stuff too that needed us to talk seriously. That took us thru to about midday. It was a valuable time, away from kids to really talk thru some significant stuff and we made a great connection there. I sensed God was with us and leading us as we spoke.
When it came time to leave it was still raining.
Where to now? What do you do on a ‘retreat’ if you can’t go anywhere that is conducive to prayer, especially when you are both ‘natural environment’ type of people?
This is where it gets very ‘unspiritual’ and Thomas would be most disappointed with me… Danelle suggested we head home and spend the day in bed snoozing and reading and” well anyway… I reckoned it was too far to drive. Her other suggestion was Harbour-town (shopping) or Koorong to look for books.
It felt kinda weird to agree to spend some of our retreat day shopping, but we went. It was actually nice just to be together with no agenda at all and no kids to attend to. Its interesting what happens in those moments that just doesn’t seem to happen in the hustle of ordinary life. We stayed at Harbour-town for about 45 minutes – probably 35 longer than I normally shop for and left with a pair of shoes for Sam.
From there we stopped in at Mega-mart – looking for a new DVD player – we have a relic from the 80’s (?) given to us by a friend that is so noisy we can no longer hear the DVD’s play! From there it was on to Koorong.
I always dread Koorong because you tend to bump into Christian ‘acquaintances’ you haven’t seen for years – people with whom you have nothing to talk about, yet you feel obliged to talk to. I walk around with my head down. I ought to wear a sign ‘no, I don’t want to talk to you either – so let’s just ignore each other’.
But” sure enough within 30 seconds it had happened – I was standing looking at books with a woman I went to church with 25 years ago” the good thing was that I think she was as happy to bypass me as I was her. We said ‘g’day’ and kept looking at books, then wandered off with nothing more said. Nice.
I quickly grabbed five books and retreated to the café section to do some rapid skimming. (How much can I read without buying?!) Danelle was leisurely cruising the kids and music section gradually acquiring a swag of stuff.
I ordered a coffee and a rather huge slab of chocolate cake and began reading haphazardly, quickly losing interest. I can’t even remember the books now, but as I was sitting there I remembered a book I had been wanting to read for ages now – Mike Yaconelli’s Messy Spirituality. I have always been a huge Yaconelli fan but just have never bought this book.
Fortunately it was on the shelf, so I grabbed it and settled in to read while Danelle continued to scour the shelves. Now this is where my day converged and God snuck up on me in quite a powerful way.
The basic thesis of Yaconelli’s book is that most of us are really pretty lame when it comes to being ‘spiritual’. We find it hard to pray once a week let alone once a day, but in developing an awareness of God in the fabric of life we actually grow a spirituality that may not be conventional but that is messy and real and maybe just as spiritual if not more spiritual than the ideal we hold up.
The day had been anything but ‘spiritual’ in the classical sense, but as I sat there for an hour or so and read Yaconelli I was powerfully aware of God speaking to me – at times frighteningly so. Yaconelli writes ‘competence is not a fruit of the spirit yet it seems that the church values it more highly than many other things’ (or words to that effect) This was the guts of a conversation earlier in the day – an issue I am working thru right now. He seemed to say a whole bunch of other things that felt much like God saying ‘just sit and listen for a bit Andrew’.
I did.
I was trying to read as much of the book as I could before leaving but I sensed God had more to say to me thru this simple, yet inspiring jumble of deeply spiritual and yet apparently unspiritual writings on what it means to follow Jesus. So I paid my $$$ and bought the book.
We bumped into some good friends – people we were glad to see – and then it was time to leave.
As we walked back to the car I was trying to describe to Danelle what I had experienced over the day. Somehow while we were shopping God had showed up and renewed some passion and love for him. How bout that?
Maybe spirituality has more to do with being intentionally present before God wherever we are than it does with a location or posture?
Either way it was as valuable as any other retreat day, but in a totally surprising way!
Maybe I could start a new stream of spirituality – finding God in the shops…
The Dowsett Clan
After getting back from a couple of very full days in Melbourne I looked in my diary only to see I had for some reason booked in 6 meetings for Thursday…
Very dumb.
Fortunately my first appointment failed to show (I have discovered that I need to build in a 1/5 ‘no show/forget’ rate in coaching) and another had to cancel. Suddenly the day became much more doable.
After a meeting with our local community development officers to discuss our Brighton youth scene, it was on to catch up with Andrew & Jo Dowsett
and their kids Susannah and Noah. Sitting on the couches at the back of Greens cafe it was great to finally meet up after so much blog talk.
These guys are living in the wonderful western suburbs and checking out whether this is the ‘next leg’ of their journey. It’ll be great to have the family up in a couple of weeks time to hang out and chat some more as well as have them present their story at the upcoming Forge Intensive.
t was great to meet
Blogging Rhythm is gone
Well…
3 days at a pastor’s retreat last week, three days in Melbourne this week and a mission team retreat this long weekend all makes for a fairly unsettled patch of life.
Add to that relatives coming to stay over the next two weeks (10 at various different points) – and the possibilities of change don’t look that exciting!
There is plenty churning in my head and heart but finding the time to put it into words fit for human consumption in the public sphere is a bit beyond me at the moment.
Anyway, that’s life for me at the moment.download six days seven nights dvd
In Demand?
Away
Tomorrow I am off for three days to a pastor’s conference where we (Baptist pastors) will join with the Church of Christ guys for a few days.
Danelle was coming, but last week we decided it might be better if she opted out as it’d mean more time away from the kids.
So all will be quiet on the blog for a few days.
Then next week I have three days in Melbourne at the Forge National Leadership Team meeting.
Busy coupla weeks!
Back
We had an amazing holiday in Bangkok.
Some highlights…
– Spending time with Jeff & Tara. There are some people who just energise you with their presence. These guys are those kind of people. Just to hang with them was worth going there.
– The food. I love food… a little too much sometimes, and Thailand is a food lovers paradise. The first night we were there we went to a restaraunt that has been classified as Thailand’s best for the last 5 years. I think I was in heaven. Thai food… sensational!
– Night Golf. Jeff and I went for a round at the Bangkok Golf Club, a beautiful course and what made it better was that after it being 5 years since I last hit a golf ball I managed a 107, with 49 on the back 9. That is my best score ever. Weird hey? Five years out and then I actually get a good score on a hard course with unfamiliar clubs… that’s golf. Of course if I decide to tak it up again back here I’ll never get under 120!
– Massages. All legit! For $6.00 you can get an hour long massage in many places in Bangkok. The ‘foot massage’ after 18 holes was great. The ‘Thai Massage’ after dinner was just plain scary. Lots of stretching and bending. I didn’t know my body could go in those directions.
– Drinks at Vertigo. Vertigo is a rooftop bar in Bangkok where you can get 360 degree views of the city. We went up there for the sunset one evening and it really gave you an appreciation for how huge this city is.
– Misho meet up. On Sunday night we hung out with a group of local missionaries who hang out at Jeff and Tara’s each week. They are mostly from the New Song church in LA and are doing some great work from the burbs to the slums. I recieved a paper from one of them on ‘New Buddhism’ a phrase that they use for Thai’s who become Jesus followers but who do not want to embrace all the cultural baggage of western christianity. Its great contextualisation stuff!
– Books. I read Affluenza on the plane on the way over. Brilliant and challenging. I was sitting next to a wealthy French woman on the way over who started the flight reading BRW and finished (after a long conversation) writing down the details of Afflenza so she could get it when she got home. I have about 250 pages of Shantaram left. It is a fantastic story, but so many characters make it a little hard to follow in places. The movie is coming!
And what did I buy?
Actually… nothing. Not a cracker.
Danelle had no problem making up for this failing on my part.
Seeya
3 Jobs – 1 Day
Some days its kinda crazy having three different jobs. Here’s how it looked today.
First up there was an hour long drive down the freeway to meet up with Dave, the National Director of YFC to discuss how Forge and YFC may better connect.
During the drive I made several work related calls to try and use the time well. I think I almost got a whole free hour from Telstra today!
From YFC it was off to do some coaching with a Baptist youth pastor now turned chaplain. I was stunned to discover that first year chaplains earn $31K… Can a bloke with a family live on that?…
Then it was a meeting of the developers and the community development company who oversee Brighton to discuss youth projects in our suburb. I have picked up a great role as the co-ordinator of a team of people concerned with strategic planning for youth development. Its the stuff we hope to do around here so I’m wrapped about that.
I got home at 4pm and spent another hour and a half on emailing and admin before having dinner with a few friends from the community.
And now… I’m watching the basketball… gonna be a late night.
40 Up
Last night we went to the 40th birthday of my longest standing mate. Stu is the only person I have known since high school and am still close friends with.
In his card I wrote: ‘we can’t pull the chicks like we used to, we don’t catch big waves any more and your chances of opening the batting for Australia are now much slimmer than they ever were, but we are both just a little bit more like Jesus and I think that’s a good thing.’
It has been great to share life over such a long period with this bloke.
He is a Vineyard Pastor
and part of ur Forge team.
The funny thing was that by 10.00pm the room was almost empty. Remember when we were 21?…