Day #1 without Caffeine (of the coffee/tea sort)

On the drive to uni this morning _ and I had a rather long, involved and quality (I hope) discussion around the difficulty of ‘doing the God thing’. How can we simply not just be good, moral, upstanding people but be living according to God, particularly when ‘God time’ gets pushed to a lower and lower priority. ‘Quiet times’ become rapidly obsolite in light of more interesting things and we start living in this static guilt cradle of, “I’m really sorry God, I should be spending more time with you.” Where in reality, the sorry changes nothing, except perpetuates into the sorry being all the God time is about. It may be quite easy to say, “I love you God” but how can you live it? __’s concerns were all very valid and I’m only sharing them because I’ve had (and often do have) the same questions myself. I offered what advice I could and thought about how I do the ‘incorporate God thing’. For really incoporating a God who should be the centre of well, everything, is throwing a human damper on it all before you even get started.

We wound up at Tabor at the end of the day and were having a chat with Rowan. It came up again and he had some great advice, pointers and wisdom beyond what I had this morning. It was directed at her but I still found it both encouraging and interesting.

Quiet times aren’t all they are cut out to be. I do know this and its a massively good thing they aren’t the be all and end all or else (picture more flailing ninnys here).

Living in step with the Spirit (Gal 5), being imitators of God (Eph 5). This in some way is the only way we can ‘love God’.

Rowan gave _ a book (if she was interested). I promptly stole it off her, because it’s short and I’d have read it and returned it before she even got around to starting. Turns out (As I thought) it is old enough to be available online. So The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence.

So I was sitting reading this tonight – took me about half an hour, it’s really not that long. I tried to keep in mind the basic principle Ro’ said it outlined – the constancy of God in our lives and spotting him in what he’s already doing. It was difficult in a way because the book had some moments where I was more than entirely willing to leave it in disgust. There was very much an emphasis on thinking on God at all times, unfortuantely any other thought he seemed to dismiss as ‘wrong’ and put the priority on Love.

I like to remember that with the, ‘love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind’ adage (verse even) that we don’t leave off the ‘mind’ at the end. I like using my mind. I’d be sorrowful piece of skin, bone and a bit of blood and fingernail without it. It’s another part of me that God has created and I intend to use it.

The writing also came across as a bit arrogant, but I think that’s just because of the age. It also seems highly more possible to think about God all the time within a ‘monk’ type situation. I mean sure he had dishes to do and meals to cook, but hah, today is distraction city. It was still a very interesting quick read just some minor mental adaptions needed to fit the generation.

God shouldn’t be he whom we intergrate, but instead he who we realise has been there all along and doesn’t depend on our ‘set aside times’ to interact with us. Stuff I know, but stuff worth remembering. Living the presence of God as if it really was here all the time (and it is) would be flippin amazing and so extremely difficult.

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HA!

Please send me an email it would make things convienient, how do you do stuff like that? Or is that one of those, “For me to know and you never to find out”.

rebecca dot lastname (get the spelling right) @ gmail.com

or

allsaidblog @ gmail.com

I find it entirely interesting watching my blog stats. The fact that some of the referer’s don’t make any sense has me a bit confused, but I’m getting some non-Aussie readers which is kind of cool.

Entirely disgraceful that I’m on here posting again, that’s three tonight. I got off msn after a couple of interesting conversations and looked at my newly made bed that’s had the electric blanket on and wanted ‘in’. I’m not quite ready for sleep yet though so, thanks to wireless things are rather nice. Bed is where I am.

Today demanded a mention anyway simply because it was so good. Church this morning wasn’t too bad. I either zoned out at the start of Petes sermon or there simply wasn’t the kind of intro that lets you know where things are going so I got a tad lost. He had some good stuff to say on God’s word, I just wasnt’ sure where it was going. I got reading some stuff in Mark near the end of the sermon – it was on a passage in Mark and decided I’d stay reading and did so through one of the last songs, where by Jess gave me a puzzled ‘what are you doing sitting down?’ look to which I just gave her a, ‘I’m reading something isn’t that obvious?’ one back. Sometime I ‘connect’ with God better through reading something than through singing something. Not to say God doesn’t use music with me, because he does to a rather large extent, but not today it seems. I confess church music has all been rather flat at the moment. My brain is too critically hardwired and it’s quite annoying.

Someone decided that the youth/young adults would all go mini-golfing. We met for lunch at Chrinside in the food court. I was sitting between Jess and Dan, leaning forward talking with Tim and Geoff across the table and Jess started rubbing the top of my back (like massage but hardly hard enough) anyway the story I got from her later was that she motioned to Dan and they both started, or Jess’s hand came off but she kept her arm there to keep ‘the look’. I was just turning around to Jess and say, “Woah you’re doing it without me asking, can you go harder please!” when I realised it wasn’t her and of course everyone laughed – end of story. Evil girl.

So mini-golfing was great! Jess, I and Geoff played one score card with Dan, Jerome and Sam behind us. Other lots of young adults/youth were around about. We were foolish enough to pick the outside course, and it having recently rained – half the holes were entirely submerged in water which made for interesting putting. I truly did suck at my first few, my excuse is that I haven’t done anything of the sort for about 10 years now, but I think I really just can’t. I did however fluke a hole in one and got ‘better’ when I could be bothered. I still lost – but only 2 points behind Jess and about 5 behind Geoff, the others didn’t score properly. It was fantastic though! Haven’t done something random like that (which isn’t a movie) in ages. So much better than bowling.

Before we left Jess was asking if anyone wanted to come to bigchurchuptheroad for the ‘search for intimacy’ (gave it away if you can be bothered googling it) short session/promo thing. Multiple ‘no’s’ mostly in favor of not being fans of the church, a particular comment I was rather impressed with being (paraphrasing here), “Last time I went I couldn’t stop criticising them, and I don’t want to do that as part of the church.” Hit home, a) because my brain does go mental at that church (most churches in bits actually) b) it was just um, wise.

I was meant to bring Hannah home from mini-golf, but no one told me and it didn’t cross my mind. Mum got really cranky at me for ‘forgetting her’ (not that I knew) I pled ignorance and someone dropped her home anyway.

I went with Jess, having been earlier persuaded. It was a bit more of a promo night than I expected and before the ‘sermon’ started there was some things said which had me just about spewing or ‘having kittens’ (if you prefer that phrase) Jess was threatening to slap me. As a church it does a huge amount of good, just a different feel/slant to things and can get a bit hypey.

Allan Meyer was however really good and there was some definite meat in the general, “This is what the series is about” thing. I would like to do The Search for Intimacy as it’s meant to be fantastic, and from what I heard tonight it’d be really good.

I think it is truly amazing how sexuality and intimacy I guess is a manifestation of God’s character and so entirely woven in the Trinity. It’s so utterly profound how it’s used as so many metaphors for explaining spiritual relationships.

Sometimes I think thats part of why marriage is so important, that it can show us something we as singles (if you happen to be single) don’t really get. Oh sure we can understand love and try to understand God’s love, but things like a ‘jealous God’. It would make so much more sense in the context of marriage where the understanding is more complete.

I was going to say more, but I think my head’s wound down for the night.

You might remember a while back that I was trying to make sense of some song lyrics. Sister, Mother by Sixpence and went even so far to email Leigh Nash – which I don’t think she ever got. Tonight I think the penny has dropped. This song, how can I put it? Is like almost every other. About relationships, but this time its about being careful.