Act 1

And whomph, the tiredness monster fly past and knocks me over and I can only sit.

I hate performance poetry – it is obnoxious and turns lovely words into melodramatic harpies. Cruel perhaps, but this – thine – then is how I feel. Point in case? (art is subjective, yes? this is art that I don’t – although not exclusively dislike)

I dislike disconnect – although there is some kind of false safety in staying busy.

Service I understand somewhat better. Although understanding is not tangible without doing – perhaps service can only ever be understood at the present moment of the act?

Hype gives me hives.

Tea, words, solace is peace and there I find God. It is not as if loud, dancing joy is hype (not in the slightest), but to me it is foreign and that swell of soul makes itself known better through moment and surprise-in-quiet.

I fill my life with too much noise. I must relearn being still.

(I’m sorry if you like performance poetry)

…

Act 2

Perhaps life flickers as performance poetry? Expanding our experiences into deep-hollow words of longing. Expression that is not met. False conclusions that wrap things up neat and tidy like. Conclusions that are conclusions.

Where is our conclusion?

Our conclusion is still longing and interacting with those moments of awareness that God drops into our lives via somewhat delightful and sometimes disturbing means.

We are disrupted. Words stop following so nicely. We step out of time and lose pace.
It is in this mess of boring prose that we find truth.
And it’s conclusion is both in this prose and beyond it.

and the finish is

“You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.”
— F. Scott Fitzgerald

I’ve been wondering a little about why I haven’t blogged lately, nor even felt the true compulsion to get at it. I’ve lost my rhythm and my routine was royally screwed this past year so it’s no great surprise. Mr Fitzgerald has said it quite nicely. The bulk of the starkness (and patronisingly easy image/music posts) is that I don’t feel like I have very much to say. This of course is probably wrong when I really assess things…

What I haven’t said is…

Lots about work. It’s tricky you know, because I do work on some quite interesting stuff but I can’t really talk about specifics online. Work needs to get seen by the client first. Fortunately the folio, long overdue for a refresh is in the works of a facelift which shall include more work and possibly some of what I’ve done. In general terms some of the exciting/sometimes intimidating stuff I’ve done includes:

• Full building signage, we’re talking large format, stuff I haven’t really done before and it came up pretty well (not a sign, like a whole building wrap and frosted glass areas etc)!
• An exhibition stand. More large format, and a tricky client topic. It amuses me no end this client, it really does.
• Web. Doing more of web has further encouraged the little burn of happiness that comes when the code just works and your <divs> can magically make a structure as fast as you can type. I have also learnt much about Adobe Business Catalyst, which is a CMS/eCommerce solution > not always the solution but is pretty darn nifty. Lets just hope they keep developing it further.

I have loved being part of a small workplace where I can have interesting conversations, am treated (although I am technically a junior designer) as an equal where my input is valued and where I genuinely enjoy the company of the people I work with. We also play Triple J, Indie/Folk, The Smiths (a lot) and have MegaMix Fridays. There is the additional bonus of being within throwing distance of a superb cafe, props to Pat and Toby throughout the week and the Monday guy/girl team (I’ll get around to asking names).

I have said something about how the first two and a half months of full time work left me wrecked and incapable of normal function most evenings. Good news is that I’m getting used to it.

I haven’t said much about Missio Dei, and the community of new friends, the openness, the great food, girls group and the inspiring people who encourage me to live a better life… and join with me in making that happen.

and I haven’t said much about theology and God lately. This is not due to the fact (upon initial suspicion – my own) that I am thinking less about that stuff or am ‘less into that stuff’ etc. – however you might put it. But more that I have come to the conclusion (or rather the inkling) that God is teaching me in a different way at the moment and it’s more to do with my living than with my head. This is indeed a good thing although a monster to deal with at times. How to communicate that just yet, I’m not quite sure. Perhaps I will have to have a little think…

On the same lines as Missio etc and even theology/God/life stuff we have talked a fair bit (we had a camp you see) about the Enneagram, as many of may know I’m a bit mad keen on anything personality and so I jumped at it (and I am going to talk about it because I find it interesting)… Interestingly the Enneagram has actually genuinely helped me recognise certain responses in myself that are very ‘oneish’ and not always positive, and consequently I can change my response or attitude. Steve asked (I think… I could have this totally wrong) way back if I – as a one, clenched my jaw a lot – I said no at the time, but it’s currently freaking me out how much I am catching myself doing it, as a natural physical response I never really noticed to indicate something such as stress or the glorious ‘internal critic’. There’s something for you to chew on if you’re interested in blackboards, about as interesting as chalk – still, very helpful. I don’t think I really fully ‘get it’ yet in regards to helping me connect better with God – but I reckon we’re getting there slowly.

Love books, still do, always have. Bookclub is going great guns, we’re up to our 13th book – I think and have a regular tribe reading the Popular Penguins. We’ve had two engagements (Ana to Blake, Amanda to Tim) and there’s a baby on the way for lovely Cat. Currently we are lacking in the boy department and are working hard (if you’re reading this Norman) to get Norman back and suss out any prospectives. Harsh but true, most of the guys we all know don’t seem to be so inclined to read a book (even in the likes of Dracula or In Cold Blood) and discuss it with great food and wine. Society lacks. Society lacks.

And friends. It has been interesting looking at the past year and what our move North has done to friendships. Proximity is a grand thing. Thankfully many of our friends are above and beyond proximity or we would be dastardly lonely (apart from the new friends… but yeh, we’re still getting there). I went to a friend’s engagement party the other night and caught up with my lovely housemate (where proximity is a geniune issue and not just because we’re lazy about it)… but it reminded me of all the truly wonderful people I know and the richness of those I know who are encouraging and so distinctly themselves. It is so ridiculously good, seeing so many of my friends truly happy at the moment.

Geoff. He’s the best. Marriage is grand.

and now, I have said something. Throw some curlys my way and I might just say more.

Tim recorded it for Amanda who couldn’t come. Perhaps I’ll ask him to shoot it my way and if it’s not too embarrassing I might share. Maybe.

So in terms of where Geoff and I are at the moment, we’re part of one of the ‘three communities’ that already exist – in it’s infancy, and meet fortnightly. We also are currently going along to Ranges Community Church.

This is exactly how I feel, or at least in the past have felt about Gush. It intrigues me to work out if this is where I need to again pour some effort or if I should wait for somewhere else to pour that expense. It is an expense. It is time, heart, pain and mental energy. It is well and truly worth it.

Do we get a say in what our ministry is? (I don’t like the term ministry by the way, and I’m not even sure of the concept of it as a stand-alone but just run with it). Or do we just somehow arrive there?

I also reckon marriage is a ministry by this definition. Not in a bad way – of hating it’s guts, ha. It’s wonderful, but at the same time it’s a lot of giving up of self and that’s marvelously difficult at times. Today Geoff made me breakfast in bed and made me lunch (err.. when I was in bed again being lazy/sleepy). It was very good.

Deep hearts hollow
and low
Cradling within an emptiness
a heaviness

a gravity,
a weight,
the bottom echo
hollow

Giant marbles on a wooden floor
banging together
not sensible
people holding hearts
a pendulous echo
God listening,
just listening.

Christina spoke this morning on Job 3 and about pain relating in particular to the apparent absence of God. And this is what I wrote. To be honest, not a lot of thought went into it, or feeling, it just kind of wrote itself. Mainly because I was feeling too blah – I’m coming down with something (always at the most inconvenient time of the year!)- to bother joining others for a discussion.

“Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”

Church up at Ranges today – it’s Easter Sunday. There were a stack of stations set up for reflection. The one that grabbed me most was, quite oddly the station about Hunger. The Bible mentions hunger quite a bit. It is wound very tightly into humanity, we need food to physically survive and food for contentment.

Each image showed was of lips – a conceptual variety of those covered in glitter holding dice, eating paper and words, half painted red, a child feeding from it’s mother.

It’s so easy to satisfy hunger with stuff, with life with busyness, with wants and percieved needs. It is not easy to satisfy hunger of the other kind with Jesus. But it is better. And things seem right when the hungry goes searching for the holy. And because the holy can relate to us in our hunger, it makes it possible.

Last night was the start of a spin off thing happening through Ranges. We don’t know really what it is, except that Les and Vubka (I know I’ve spelt that wrong), Bob, Tim, Cat, AJ (and Lily and Annabel), Geoff and I – not an exhaustive list for future reference as it’s rather open ended- met for dinner and had a good discussion on the Kingdom of God, church etc.

If injections were more positive things I’d equate it with that. It was good, whatever it was. And it was right. I came away hopeful.

Les very succinctly described our role in the Kingdom of God as not to ‘go build’ (Whatever the hell that’s meant to mean anyway) but rather as stewards. Taking it back to the Garden of Eden, where when ‘the fall’ occurred; there was a split in horizontal relationships between people, the land etc and we lost that perfect vertical relationship (with God) was affected. And this then are the areas we are stewards and the point being to draw things closer to that perfect vertical…. I have explained it terribly and I’m sure it’s not complete and I don’t know fully what it looks like, but it’s certainly not about a point of ‘salvation’ and a ‘go out and make converts’.

I like these people. I like what God is doing.

this marvellous picture’s source

It’s interesting, transition. I am marvelously familiar with it due to my highly nomadic upbringing although I must say it was often more of a wrench and a snap than something that brewed – a shift in perspective or perhaps just direction.

Many of you might know that Geoff and I spend a fair bit of time thinking about church, mind you, sometimes it doesn’t feel like it and I think that Geoff’s thinking probably translates in to practicality more than my ideas – which have never actually evolved into something concrete – they are still floating quite abstractly. Regardless, we’re keen to one day be involved in something a bit different. Ranges isn’t violently out-there. It’s definitely much smaller and unfortunately even further from us and not in our local community. It’s a different and perhaps older (or at least less peer based) group for us. It’s not an end point. It might be a mid-term thing, it might be a long mid-term thing. We do like how Ranges try things out. I like feeling a bit more at home despite still getting very slowly get to know people. I can feel the heartbeat at Ranges. YVV’s is hiding from me, which is as much my own fault and not really to do with them at all.

There are some other spin off things that will potentially happen via some of the people we know at Ranges, things that will land closer to our locale. A chance to try some stuff out with some others.

I am not after a perfect church, I am after one that acknowledges imperfection and maybe doesn’t care if things aren’t exceptionally done, where everyone is responsible. Small suits who I am or at least the starting point for getting me closer to thinking about things and doing things.

I need to come away from church encouraged. I like to come away from church thinking. And I am scared about it but would be better off coming away from a church where I am doing things and pushed to do things.

And the whole ‘doing things’ bit is not at all same as ‘being in ministry/leading youth’ but I can’t quite explain it.

By the way: changing churches is not the cure-all nor is it meant to be the cure. Simply speaking, I think I need to learn again how to be a part of the Church.

—

On a slight shift, I was poking around the Ranges website and the blogs listed on there and thought this post Walter Brueggemann on View from a Room was worth sharing.

image source